What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The pandemic and resulting shut down of the cruise industry by the CDC led to several complex financial transactions requiring the legal department’s leadership, as these were needed to raise capital while the company was not operating. The pandemic further thrust the legal department into the conversation of returning to sail, as the team counselled the business owners through all their initiatives, to ensure compliance with the new regulatory frameworks was being implemented. One particularly difficult issued focused on Florida’s newly enacted vaccine legislation which otherwise prevented the company from requiring passengers to show proof of vaccination at the time of embarkation. Given our strong belief that a fully vaccinated ship was the only way to keep everyone healthy, we made the difficult decision to challenge the law in federal court, successfully obtaining a temporary injunction allowing us to make vaccination a prerequisite to sailing.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?  

The easy thing for in-house lawyers to do is to reject any new initiative brought to them by a business owner. It is generally a safe legal response that can’t blowback on them. But that is not why in-house lawyers are hired. To build strong and successful relationships, in-house counsel needs to first listen carefully to them to be sure they fully understand the business initiative and respond thoughtfully. I have found that often, in-house counsel can offer a creative work, allowing business owners to flawlessly execute their initiatives within the bounds the law allows. Offering a reasonable alternative or creative solution instead of demonstrates to the business partner that you are looking out for them and not just the company, building trust amongst the parties and forging lasting partnerships.

What are some of the main legislative or regulatory changes that have impacted you?

We work with public health and regulatory agencies at the almost 500 destinations we visit worldwide, complying with local mandates regarding health and safety. This has been particularly impactful with the emergence of the pandemic. For example, in the U.S. the CDC implemented a shutting down of our entire industry from March 2020 to mid-2021.

Our ships are also subject to various laws and regulations relating to environmental protection, including greenhouse gas emissions. An example of this is the introduction of two new requirements going into effect in 2023, the carbon intensity indicator and the energy efficiency ship index, which regulate carbon emissions for ships.