About

In November 2013, Richard Magnan was hired as intellectual property and legal counsel for Rising Tide, this was the first in-house counsel position in the company, as all legal services were previously outsourced. The company consisted of two charitable foundations, an investment advisory department and an intellectual property department. Although his services were intended to be exclusively for the IP department, Magnan offered to support two other departments and over time established the in-house legal team of three attorneys and a paralegal. Proving his value to the business gave way to his appointment as general counsel in July 2015. ‘I was very fortunate to have had a variety of in-house positions in private industry, government and international organisations. This very diverse experience and the guidance from my supervisors and colleagues enabled me to succeed in increasingly challenging positions’, says Magnan. Magnan has established the creation of two new business lines in medical technology and biotechnology, including the formation of four corporations in Switzerland and the UK. He has also handled the drafting and negotiation of contracts for facilities, services, employees, consultants, clinical trials and other purposes, including the development of new intellectual property for the treatment of cancer. Magnan’s early career involved being a computer scientist for the US government; after the US Supreme Court decisions supported the patenting of computer software, he was sent to law school to study the intersection of computer technology and law. His subsequent positions include in-house roles in international negotiations, cyber security, and litigation involving offenses committed over the internet. Magnan teaches a cyber law and cyber security course at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) Law School for experienced lawyers in a LLM program.