About

Team size: 31
Major law firms used: DWF, Herbert Smith Freehills, Shoosmiths, Simmons & Simmons

For GC Edward Smith and the Telefónica legal function, the past year can be split into three broad trends encompassing risk, regulation and compliance. As a result, Smith has had to make major adaptations to the internal legal function.

He notes the exponential rise of legislation ‘with the intention to force Telefónica to publish figures on a number of topics,’ including the gender pay gap and modern slavery reporting. ‘It’s a massive increase of detail required for non-financial reporting, and the result of all this is the legal team has to work very closely with our press team and the audit team to make sure the figures are correct.’ He describes this new rise in work as ‘the court of public opinion’.

More specific to Telefónica but also the wider telecoms sector has been increased regulator activity. Ofcom is the relevant watchdog and he says it has taken a greater interest in ‘consumer issues’ – how the mobile giants actually service their customers. ‘Our regulator has taken a keen interest in ensuring consumers have flexibility and that they are properly informed about the provisions of their contracts.’ Smith says this has required a great deal of effort and input from the legal team.

The third trend, compliance, has seen a significant shift in Smith’s team. He says: ‘Of all the areas I am responsible for, compliance is the one that has grown the most. It’s gone from being an important but backroom activity to being front and centre of how we do business.’

On his own leadership style, he concludes: ‘I hope people would think of me as approachable, informal and someone who doesn’t bullshit. I like to think of myself as supportive and, once he has chosen the right person for the job, someone who interferes as little as possible.’