About

Accruing a revenue figure of over €153bn in 2016, Daimler is one of the world’s largest and most recognised automobile corporations. Particularly known for its luxury Mercedes-Benz brand, the company has been serviced by outstanding legal support for almost 15 years from its current head of legal department Dr Thomas Laubert. Before joining Daimler – where he has moved through the business in various legal roles – Dr Laubert obtained nearly three years of experience as a counsel at professional services firm Deloitte, after which he subsequently joined a company that produces some of the German car industry’s most iconic products. Dr Laubert started his career at Daimler in 2004, where he first worked on several litigation cases involving human rights and insider trading, was involved in the investigations of violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the settlement negotiations with the relevant authorities, and also advised on many aspects of criminal law and compliance matters. He then moved to Mercedes Benz USA as the NAFTA legal coordinator, overseeing advice to the American subsidiaries of the group before returning to take charge of the legal regulatory compliance department in 2012, with responsibility for aligning with the compliance monitor appointed by the US authorities. In 2016 he assumed worldwide responsibility for the legal department and is known as being a key part of the risk management process for the large-scale operations of Daimler across the globe. In the future, Dr Laubert will be critical to the execution of the company’s strategy in terms of digitalisation, industry 4.0, new business models and alternative mobility systems. Dr Laubert explains the scope of these ambitions claiming Daimler is ‘in the process of transforming itself from being a traditional car manufacturer into a mobility services provider. An important topic for the present and the future is autonomous driving. Daimler is pushing forward with this subject and will continue to play a role in shaping the public discussion about autonomous driving in the future’. He adds: ‘In 2015, Daimler held the first expert conference on “Autonomous Driving, Law and Ethics”, and we will continue with this format with another expert conference this autumn. With these events, we aim to continue the dialogue with representatives of business, science, politics and the media, which we also follow up on in several of our activities. The legal perspective plays an important role in this discussion, because new technical developments need legal certainty in order to be accepted’.