During 2004, PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a major study of compliance in financial institutions and published the findings in Protecting the Brand (May 2005). More than 73 internationally-active financial institutions took part in the study. One portion summarized the various reporting permutations of compliance (pg. 45). In 49 percent of the institutions,…
In Winning Legally: How to Use the Law to Create Value, Marshall Resources, and Manage Risks (Harv. Bus. School Press 2005) at 61, Prof. Constance Bagley of the Harvard Business School writes: “Ideally, the general counsel should report to the board of directors to ensure a clear line of communications.”…
Avery Dennison, a manufacturer of pressure-sensitive technology and self-adhesive products that maintains more than 740 US patents, created an IP Management (IPM) group to manage IP decisions across different business units, geographies, and technologies (Thomson Scientific’s KnowledgeLink Newsletter, Aug. 2005 at 1). IPM coordinates with several areas within Avery Dennison,…
According to a survey of members of the American Health Lawyers Association released in July 2004, jointly conducted with the Health Care Compliance Association, a key question is whether the general counsel can or should be the company’s chief compliance officer. Does such a dual role create conflicts of interest?…
So often, it seems the patent and trademark lawyers trundle along on their own track, barely heedful of the “general” lawyers in the department, while the generalists in turn remain oblivious of their intellectual property colleagues. Frequently with offices in different places, usually with cultures on the two sides of…
A paragraph in Legal Week, Vol. 7, Dec. 15, 2005 at 45, captures the essence of lawyers NOT reporting to a company’s most senior lawyer (See my post of Dec. 14, 2005 on “functional” reporting and July 25, 2005 on AXA’s decentralized reporting.): “GE has 11 separate business departments, each…
The restructured legal department at Royal Dutch Shell has divided its lawyers into “corporate counsel,” “business counsel,” and “regional counsel.” All of these counsel report to the General Counsel, Beat Hess, according to Legal Week, Vol. 7, Nov. 10, 2005 at 62 (See my post of Dec. 21, 2005 about…
Undeniably, the law has much to say with how long a company must retain records, when they can destroy them, and how they may be stored. That those laws and regulations exist, however, should not dump records retention in the lap of the law department. As with compliance, where lawyers…
During the summer of 2005, 412 inside corporate counsel responded to an online survey sponsored by ACC and Corpedia, a provider of ethics and compliance training. Some 85 percent of those respondents were at US-based companies; and 60 percent were with publicly-traded companies. One finding was that “32 percent of…
As reported in Of Counsel, Aug. 2005, A large technology company had law offices in 11 European locations, each staffed with two or three local lawyers who were only able to carry out very limited assignments, spending most of their time essentially as a liaison between headquarters and the local…