About

Julia-Christina Friedrich was recruited in 2014 by Hannover Re to assist in the relocation of its primary insurance subsidiary, Inter Hannover, from London to Hannover. This was the first time that a European insurance company made use of this opportunity to change its legal seat to another EU member state under the legal form of a Societas Europea (SE) and a great professional challenge for Friedrich. In charge of this critical move, Friedrich was responsible for building up a new compliance organisation at the new headquarters in Germany and for adjusting legal and compliance policies and processes to both the German jurisdiction and to the new Solvency II regime, showing a great deal of adaption and flexibility and adjusting to local peculiarities where necessary, Friedrich admits the project showed her how diverse regulatory expectations can be and what difficulties lie in trying to establish a centralised compliance set-up, ‘and that a one-fits-all approach does not even work in a legally aligned European Union’. Friedrich currently utilises this knowledge to manage the ten professionals that are located in different branch offices and departments, reporting compliance matters into her. Prior to this role, Friedrich was hired as the first in-house counsel at the newly established Munich Re subsidiary in Luxembourg, becoming the head of legal and compliance with six persons reporting into her. In that role, Friedrich initiated a project to ensure that the insurance company was acting in compliance with applicable foreign legal and regulatory requirements when conducting its worldwide business activities, an experience she claims was ‘the starting point for her career in compliance’.