About

Since 2014, the legal and compliance department at SBB, Switzerland’s national railway company, is managed in a solid line with each division dedicated to legal resources which provide expertise and alignment with top-management on various large-scale projects. In addition to these departments, there is a compliance office and legal operations team. Currently made up of 67 lawyers and seven non-lawyers, the legal and compliance team has been very much focusing on innovation and digitalisation, keeping to the beat of the various challenges regarding technologies, dynamic markets, overload of information and various social changes. To this end, the legal team has created a new legal services provision, “Legal Management of Tomorrow”, with a roadmap of the latest topics for the next five to 10 years. ‘We believe that the cultural transformation is key and promotes a culture where people take self-initiative. Our lawyers do not wait to be mandated, they see problems and [opportunities] and solve them without being asked. They are ambitious and want to take on responsibility for the result’, says general counsel, head legal and compliance Nora Teuwsen. The lawyers of the team are trained in order to be able to fully take on the aforementioned responsibilities successfully. ‘We want our lawyers to have new skills like understanding IT-solutions, project management and negotiations skills’, explains Teuwsen. In light of this, several tools have been implemented such as the introduction of a first, simple know-how database which is now being further developed into a new project. The replacement of manual forms for SBB’s entire workflow processes regarding anti-corruption was also transferred to an electronic process. Another ongoing project being undertaken by the team is “legal design”, which has the aim of making legal documents easy for non-lawyers to understand, with the help of graphics, drawn processes and simple wording. Five years after the merger of the various legal departments into a single legal and compliance department, the function is perceived both internally and externally as one legal team. ‘Cooperation often takes place not only within the division for which a team is responsible, but also across SBB. Anyone with specialist knowledge can also use resources from other departments. In case of larger urgent projects, ad-hoc task forces ensure the best possible know-how and achieve the best possible result’, explains Teuwsen.