About

As Legal Counsel to one of Germany’s largest insurance groups, which operates as a part of the global Zurich Insurance Group, Niklas Boslak has met a variety of challenges. Insurance providers are operating in a sector that is subject to continuously changing legal frameworks which challenge the legal department to cover a rising work load with increased efficiency. Key in Boslak’s role has therefore been making adjustments as to how the legal department operates, but also developing the willingness to ‘accept that as in-house counsel we have to set a clear focus on the management of legal topics’. A particular success has been the Federal Court ruling in favour of his company regarding the defence of claims for damages resulting from financial investments, a ruling that had a knock-on effect on other proceedings covering similar matters, and has therefore been a ‘huge success’. But positive court rulings are not the only measure of success for Boslak: Success is ‘if we anticipate regulatory measures, successfully translate these into projects and if these projects prove themselves in practice’. External advisors should be able to ‘adjust to the client’s organisation and processes, not the other way around’. Law firms should also ‘apart from the focus on what is legally possible not lose sight of commercial drivers from the company’s perspective, beyond the case at hand’.