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Led by extremely well-regarded general legal counsel and chief compliance officer Hyun-Soo Kim, Hyundai Motor Europe’s eight-person legal team reported two major accomplishments among its successes over the past two years. One major change, the consolidation project; and one major innovation, the warranty change and customer protection program. On the former, the team reported that ‘during 2018, Hyundai Motor Europe has become Hyundai regional headquarters for Europe. This development was part of Hyundai Motor Company’s global reorganisation and aimed to grant regional units greater integration and empowerment, and led to all legal and compliance roles within the Hyundai European subsidiaries being consolidated into one European legal and compliance group led by our team’. On the latter, the team explained that it was forced into action by increasing unauthorised sale of new vehicles by unauthorised resellers: ‘Faced with this problem, during 2017 our team developed an innovative legal solution by applying for the first time in the automotive industry the European Court of Justice’s decision on Metro and Cartier, which allowed a manufacturer who operates a selective distribution system to limit the manufacturer’s warranty only to products which have been sold by its official network. This decision bore the unpredictable risk that every customer affected by this limitation would project the fact that the manufacturer is rejecting warranties for its own genuine product… our team developed the concept of a unique customer protection program (“CPP”). In particular, the purpose of CPP is to grant warranty based on good will in cases an end-customer bought a new vehicle from an unauthorised reseller in good faith of receiving the manufacturer’s warranty’. Alongside these extremely important projects, which showcase the team’s creativity and proactivity alongside its sound legal skills, the Hyundai Motor Europe legal function has also been intimately involved in the company’s GDPR compliance. It also had legal oversight of the launching of a new car sharing project and embarked upon investigatory work aimed at identifying and stopping hundreds of unauthorised traders from selling Hyundai products by enforcing Hyundai’s trademark rights. Alongside Kim, legal head Stefan Ritonga and compliance head Ana Fernández Cruzado came in for particular praise for the ‘integral part’ they have played in ‘not only achieving, but exceeding the targets and expectations set by senior management’.