About

BIC has carved out an over €2bn revenue consumer products business on the back of simple but timeless products that combine reliability and practicality with affordability through thorough but inexpensive mass-production methods. Its most famous products are its disposable pens, razors and cigarette lighters which are ubiquitous the world over, and highlight the broad appeal of the company’s products. Edouard Maruani, BIC’s group general counsel, is in charge of an overall group legal team of 50 lawyers and is clear that this is ‘one global team of business partners that is fully integrated’. Maruani is keen to stress the variety of expertise that the legal team possesses within its ranks: ‘It is a truly international team with various talents that complement each other. This allows good control over all areas of the business from a legal perspective’. As for the legal team’s major successes over recent years, Maruani points to its work on the ‘risk to retailer programme’, which was ‘absolutely pivotal’ to the group’s success in North America. ‘Because our lighters are manufactured with extensive testing’, he explains, ‘they are far safer than copies that come in from the Far East that can even explode or the flame may not extinguish, which is obviously very dangerous. Combining industry knowledge, legal knowledge and active engagement with retailers, we were able to get across to retailers the liabilities they might incur when selling faulty lighters’. This, when juxtaposed with BIC lighter’s excellent safety and reliability record, led to increased sales opportunities for the company. Therefore, the legal team had an appreciable impact on the company’s bottom line directly, a state of affairs that many in-house legal teams would envy. Maruani is clear as to what qualities are required to succeed within BIC’s legal team: ‘We look for people who are both very knowledgeable about the local area, and at ease and willing to interact in an international and global environment. Within the department we want those who are good team players but specialists at the same time’.