ECLA/ICAM – Legal Professional Privilege Workshop

High-level expert workshop 💡 with colleagues from across Europe 🇪🇺 and the European Commission on the evolution of our profession …

On Friday, 14 March 2025, 40 experts on the legal professions, including in-house lawyers and the European Commission met in Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸 to discuss the latest developments and challenges for attorney-client-confidentiality, professional secrecy and legal professional privilege at large. The focus was on national developments since the well-known Akzo Nobel decision both in Europe and other OECD countries, the currently pending case at the Court of Justice of the European Union on the transposition of the whistleblower directive, and future developments on the legal profession.

Main conclusions and key take-aways:
⚖️ The legal profession must take a more active role in defending professional secrecy and recognizing it as an essential right of citizens
⚖️ The profession evolved significantly since the year 2010 and most probably a decision like the one in the Akzo Nobel case would not be possible today
⚖️ Thus the Akzo Nobel jurisprudence needs to be revisited to reflect the current standards of the in-house legal profession today
⚖️ Today, the majority of Member States of the EU guarantee some sort of confidentiality to in-house counsel
⚖️ Trust is key for a transparent communication between in-house legal departments and the internal client
⚖️ Therefore, confidentiality in the communication with in-house counsel supports effective compliance structures across Europe
⚖️ Terminology upgrade: It is not the legal privilege of the lawyers, it is a privilege of the client and therefore an obligation for the lawyers (There is an obligation arising from the privilege)

The workshop took place in the impressive building of Ilustre Colegio de la Abogacía de Madrid and we thank the colleagues for their outstanding hospitality.

We would like to also thank our keynote speakers: Daniel Calleja Crespo, Stephanie Fougou, Teresa Minguez Diaz, Marcus M. Schmitt as well as our contributors Simon Vander Putten, Jonathan Marsh, Marc Mossé, Stéphane BARTHE, Dr. Timo Hermesmeier, Carlos Menor, Richard Bacek, Víctor Gamero Cabo, Alexis Kendall Aranda and all of our participants. Many thanks also to Julie Dutordoir, Max Gröning, Eric Lennerth, Silvia Bonacossa, Mark Cockerill, Waldemar Koper, Laure Lavorel, Claudia Biedermann, Giuseppe Catalano, Javier Ramirez Iglesias, Giovanni Cerutti, Aldo Scaringella, Marie Brejchova, Philippe Coen and many more.

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ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable Lisbon: European Compliance and White Collar Crime

Bem vindo a Lisboa – ECLA’s final General Counsel Roundtable with 30 participants from 16 different countries takes place in Portugal 🇵🇹 …

The topics of the day are the latest trends and challenges in European 🇪🇺 compliance and white collar crime. After an remarkable dinner yesterday overlooking Lisbon today we are exchanging legal-insights, best-practices and lessons-learned to create valuable cross-border take-aways in the fields of:
💡 European compliance updates and emerging developments in the EU
💡 Money laundering – European overview and structural prevention
💡 Sanctions – Legal update, compliance & good practice
💡 Internal Investigations – Risk trends for corporates, latest practices

The discussions are highly active and enlightening with expert colleagues exchanging experience in their home jurisdictions. Participants represent multiple countries across Europe and beyond, including 🇧🇪 🇮🇪 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇵🇱 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇳🇱 🇨🇭 🇺🇦 🇵🇹 🇪🇸 🇧🇾 🇸🇰 🇰🇷 🇦🇺 🇨🇴

A big thank you to our trusted partners, Ordem dos Advogados Portugueses and CMS for making this great event possible.

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable Poland: ESG

24 Participants from across 🇪🇺 discussing ESG Reporting, ESG Litigation and Supply Chain Regulations in beautiful Warsaw, Poland 🇵🇱 today…

Kicking off of the ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable was yesterday evening with a joint dinner and bar networking night. The maturing of ESG towards ESG 2.0 was certainly the elephant in the room. Today, enlightening discussions and best-practice sharing generate valuable take-aways for the participants with topics, including:

💡 Supply chain regulations and rules – practical issues
💡 Practical aspects of ESG reporting – how to include the value chain in straggles to comply with CSRD requirements
💡 ESG litigation: Challenges and trends in the regulatory environment
💡 The impact of ESG in finance

Todays speakers Joachim Kaetzler, Angelika Szufel, Nicolò d’Elia, Dag Thomas Hansson enrich the active discussions with their expert legal insights.

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Forum Europe: Gala Evening

Magic 🪄 Gala Evening and Dinner at the General Counsel Forum Europe 🇪🇺 …

After an insightful conference day with more than 30 highly-interesting panel discussions, keynotes, and focus speeches, the 41st Anniversary General Counsel Forum Europe concluded with a splendid gala evening, including an exclusive seated dinner and an impressive magic show by the magician and world champion of performing arts, Daniel.

We would like to thank all the fantastic speakers, panelists, participants and sponsoring partners of the event for their outstanding contributions.

We look forward to seeing you next year for the 42nd Anniversary General Counsel Forum Europe in late September 2025

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ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable Milan: From Trends to Tech: Comprehensive Strategies for M&A Success

Exciting expert discussions at our General Counsel Roundtable in Milan, Italy include…

Participants from 12 different European 🇪🇺 jurisdictions are currently elaborating on:

💡M&A Pulse: Decoding the Latest Trends in Europe
💡Tax Tango: Mastering Deal Structures for Optimal Savings
💡Digital Defenders: AI and Cybersecurity in M&A
💡Clash or Compromise: Navigating Litigation and Arbitration in M&A

We thank our fantastic speakers:
🎙️ Daniela Murer
🎙️ Alain Raemy
🎙️ Carlo Gnetti
🎙️ JOHANN ROC’H
🎙️ Louise Boswell
🎙️ Elmer Veenman🔸

Many thanks also to CMS and CMS Corporate/M&A Group for supporting this pan-European expert exchange!

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable: Milan Pre-Evening Reception

The Triple Transition: Climate, Energy & Digital is the topic tonight in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹

General counsel and legal experts from 12 different countries are meeting for the M&A General Counsel Roundtable of ECLA and the General Counsel Roundtable Europe 🇪🇺 together with our trusted partner CMS and CMS Corporate/M&A Group.

We look forward to our interesting discussions tomorrow throughout the morning.

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable: Cross-border M&A transactions and Pan-European transformation projects

Cross-border M&A transactions and Pan-European transformation projects was the topic of today’s Virtual General Counsel Roundtable with 15 general counsel from 8 different European countries 🇪🇺. Key take-aways from the very active discussion among participants and presentation by Alain Raemy and Björn Otto from CMS Corporate/M&A Group:

💡 PMI Importance: Effective post-merger integration is critical for M&A success, ensuring the new organisation meets objectives and achieves synergies.
💡 Strategic Complexity: M&A goals are complex and vary by scenario, with integration challenges depending on the transaction type.
💡 Early Planning: Successful integration requires detailed early planning, avoiding delays until post-closing to merge companies.
💡 Integration Considerations in Due Diligence: Early integration considerations should be included in the due diligence questions.
💡 Planning Integration Steps: Concrete planning of integration steps should begin as soon as the transaction structure is determined.

Stay tuned for more upcoming sessions virtually and physically and meet us personally in Berlin, Germany on 7/8 October for the “General Counsel Forum Europe” – the annual expert meeting for GC across Europe: www.ecla.eu

Many thanks to CMS and the ECLA and General Counsel Leadership Circle Europe network!

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable: European M&A trends 2024

Locked box vs. completion accounts and purchase price adjustments in Europe vs. the US…?

ECLA and the General Counsel Leadership Circle Europe held a highly interesting and active virtual roundtable discussion on ‘European M&A trends 2024’ together with CMS Corporate/M&A Group represented by Louise Wallace and Laura Christin Stein, including 14 general counsel from 8 different European countries 🇪🇺.

Key observations in the market taken from CMS’ European M&A Study 2024:

💡 The M&A market remains under pressure due to economic uncertainties, higher interest rates, slow GDP growth in the US and Europe and geopolitical threats but also proves to be resilient
💡 Earn-out agreements are overall decreasing in M&A deals, indicating a shift towards more predictable deal terms
💡 Liability caps remained relatively stable across various purchase price segmentation in the years from 2010 to 2024
💡 W&I insurances are used in M&A deals across Europe with the use remaining stable
💡 ESG considerations still on the rise: Due diligence continue to focus on sustainable and responsible investments

Overall there is reasons to be cheerful in 2024:
📣 Global Q1 M&A volume rose 5-10% vs. 2023
📣 Banks lending again. Monetary policy should ease


📣 Risk of a sharp economic downturn is receding
📣 PE likely to return as they seek exit strategies and redeployments
📣 Seismic shifts driving M&A e.g. AI, sustainability, tech-enabled consumer class
📣 Favourable sector dynamics e.g FS consolidation, Tech-driven M&A, Oil & Gas consolidation, renewables

The new CMS study on European M&A trends can be downloaded here: https://cms.law/en/deu/publication/cms-european-m-a-study-2024

ECLA’s next general counsel roundtable discussion is scheduled for 25 June 2024 at 10:00 CEST and will focus on ‘Cross-Border M&A Transactions and Pan-European Restructuring / Transformation Projects’.

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable In London

ECLA and the GCLC Europe are in London, England 🇬🇧 for our General Counsel Roundtable.

👩‍⚖️👨‍⚖️ 26 Participants from 🇪🇺 15 European countries and with 🏢🏭 17 different industry focuses are discussing latest developments and challenges in cross-border litigation and dispute resolution in the lovely Leonardo Royal Hotel at St. Pauls.

Main topics of today are:
💡 Insights into ESG litigation: Addressing emerging risks across industries,
💡 Navigating Europe’s class action legal landscape and assessing related risks,
💡 Artificial intelligence in dispute resolution

 

Legal Disruption is Back in 2020

[vc_row css_animation=”” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern”][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text]ECLA has kicked off the new decade by hosting a Legal Disruption roadshow event in Dublin, Ireland. The roadshow in 2020 builds on the foundation that ECLA has already established, aiming to bring captivating speakers to in-house lawyers all across Europe.

Images of the event can be seen below or by clicking here.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text]The first Legal Disruption of 2020 took place in Dublin at The Gibson Hotel. On Wednesday evening on 26 February, in-house lawyers gathered to hear Jane Challoner of CMS give input on possibilities on how to innovate within corporate legal departments and how the role of in-house counsel might be changing. The practical information on where corporate legal departments currently are at served as an excellent introduction to the discussions the following day.

The first session on Thursday 27 February touched privacy matters. The previous decade saw privacy and data handling become one of the most discussed legal themes. Denis Kelleher of LinkedIn gave a detailed overview of the evolution of the European privacy regime, how GDPR has influenced it and what have been the landmark judgments by the CJEU, whilst also giving input on what the future might entail. Linda Thielova of OneTrust built upon Mr. Kelleher’s speech and highlighted other privacy regimes around the world, namely the CCPA. Given that a considerable proportion of companies that today operate globally, a harmonised program lowers costs and greatly reduces challenges for the legal departments of such companies.

Session number two focused on tech utilisation in corporate legal departments. Julienne Jameson of Ewopharma showcased how legal technology could facilitate smaller legal departments, enabling her to handle multiple jurisdictions amongst offices across Europe. This was followed by Nicola Palmer of the Bank of Ireland, who gave an overview of how utilising BusyLamp and their legal spend management tool has changed their operations. The final speaker of the session was Jean-Philippe Doho of Ubisoft who showcased what the legal innovation team in Ubisoft have been doing. The presentation included topics such as legal design to demonstrating a video on how to inform about privacy rules.

The third session focused on contemporary legal departments in general. Monica Mahay of Intel sat down with Mark Cockerill, Vice-President of ECLA, to discuss flexible working practices in high-ranking positions and how she has accomplished a quality work-life balance throughout her distinguished career. Cian Farrell of Huawei Ireland gave some input into how digitalisation and legal technology is being utilised in such large and global companies and the legal departments within. Michelle Feely of Ribbon Communications gave advice on how to ensure a smooth transition in a merger and that the processes in place and technologies in use operate properly afterwards.

The final session saw two speakers looking into the future of corporate lawyers. Colm O’Connor of SCOR Ireland shared some personal experiences in how he has seen the role of general counsel change over the years and how technology has influenced the change. William Irwin of Glassdoor complimented the speech with providing his own input and remarked how far in-house lawyers have come already.

Participants were engaged throughout the day, asking a wide array of questions from the speakers. We hope that everybody that attended left with a positive can-do attitude, motivated to disrupt their own legal departments.

We would like to extent our deepest gratitude to our esteemed speakers and we hope that we will see you again soon. We would also like to thank our sponsors, without whom the event would not have become a reality – CMS, OneTrust, and BusyLamp. We hope that this fruitful relationship continues throughout the year and many more to come.

To those, who missed out on attending in Dublin, do not fret, our next legal disruption will take place in summer in Berlin!

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