Speakers

Conference chairmen

Jeremy Barton, general counsel and head of risk management, The Boston Consulting Group
Jeremy Barton is a partner and the General Counsel of The Boston Consulting Group, where he is responsible for all legal matters. In addition to advising the CEO and the Executive Committee at a strategic level, Jeremy and his team counsel BCG partners on operational legal matters as well as on issues relating to risk management, ethics, corporate governance, group structure and intellectual property. Jeremy is responsible for the coordination of legal resources and outside counsel throughout BCG. He leads a team of attorneys in the United States and in Europe.

Jeremy’s previous experience includes:
General Counsel, Ernst & Young Global – London
Deputy Global General Counsel, Andersen – Geneva & Paris
European General Counsel, Andersen – Paris
Solicitor with international law firm, Norton Rose – London & Paris

View Jeremy's introduction to the Corporate Counsel Forum Europe 2009.

Charles Lawton, former general counsel, Rio Tinto
Charles Lawton was The Legal Adviser to Rio Tinto plc from 1989 until his retirement in 2008. At Rio Tinto, Charles was closely involved in providing advice relating to the strategic development of the company’s business including advising on oil and gas acquisitions in the 1970s and early 1980s as well as on Rio Tinto’s mainstream activity of mineral exploration and development. Particularly significant transactions on which he advised were the US $2.7bn acquisition of BP Minerals (1989); acquisition of both equity and joint venture interests in Freeport Copper and Gold and its Grasberg mine in Indonesia (1995), the innovative dual listed companies merger of RTZ and CRA (1995) and the US $38.5bn acquisition of Alcan (2007).

Currently, Charles is a consultant to CMS Cameron McKenna advising on various aspects of their business.

Charles is an honorary life member of the International Bar Association having been its Treasurer (2004-06) and Chair of the IBA’s Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law (2002-04).

Keynote speakers

Peter Kurer, former chairman, UBS
Peter Kurer was Chairman of UBS AG from April 2008 to April 2009. Prior to this, Peter Kurer was UBS' Group General Counsel and a member of its Group Executive Board.

Before joining UBS in 2001, Peter Kurer was a member of the Swiss law firm Homburger where he chaired the Corporate Law Practice Group and was involved in some of the largest European M&A transactions. He also served on a number of boards of public and private companies. He joined Homburger (at that time associated with Baker McKenzie) as an associate in 1980 and became a partner in 1985.

Peter Kurer holds a law degree from the University of Zurich (Dr. iur.) and a graduate degree from the University of Chicago (LL.M.). Peter Kurer has regularly published articles on M&A topics and corporate governance issues.

Thomas Werlen, general counsel, Novartis
Thomas Werlen, Ph.D. is the General Counsel of Novartis and responsible for the Group’s legal affairs, a position he assumed in January 2006. He is Secretary to the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee of the Board of Directors of Novartis. Thomas Werlen has been a member of the Executive Committee of Novartis since October 16, 2008.

A member of the New York bar and the Zurich bar, Thomas Werlen started his professional career with the law firm Lenz & Staehelin in Zurich in 1990. After graduation from Harvard Law School in 1995, he joined Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York. In 2001, he was elected a Partner in the London office of Allen & Overy.

Dirk Tirez, general counsel, The Belgian Post
Dirk P. Tirez, a Belgian national, is General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at the Belgian Post, Belgium’s incumbent and leading postal operator with 35,000 employees. He is also maître de conférences at the University of Namur in Belgium, where he teaches European banking and finance law. Dirk is a member of the Board of ACC Europe and is also Chairman of the Legal Committee of the Belgian Employers Federation (FEB/VBO). He is multilingual and the author of numerous publications in the area of European securities laws and regulations.

From 1996 to 2003, Dirk was a Member of the Senior Management Committee, General Counsel and Company Secretary of NASDAQ Europe. He was a founding Executive of EASDAQ. Dirk was also a member of the SRO committee of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and was vice-chairman of the corporate governance committee of the European Association of Securities Dealers.

Prior to this, from 1993 to 1996, he was counsel to the Office of Mr. Philippe Maystadt, the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Foreign Trade, and was in charge of banking and finance legislation, the implementation of European securities directives, and the Belgian privatisation programme.

From 1989 until 1993, he was associated with international leading law firms and worked both in New York and Brussels, as an attorney admitted to the New York and the Brussels Bars.

Speakers

Dennis Turner, chief economist, HSBC
Dennis Turner is the Chief Economist of HSBC Bank plc in the City. His role involves advising lending bankers on economic trends not only at national level, but also on industries and regions.

Before joining Midland Bank in 1978, he worked for four years in Whitehall, for the National Economic Development Office. This was during the Labour government’s Industrial Strategy Initiative, which was an attempt to improve the performance of the UK’s manufacturing sector.

William Downs, international department head, corporate strategy & finance, Hammonds

Richard Given, director, legal - Emerging Markets, CISCO

Alison Hampton, general counsel, HgCapital
Alison joined HgCapital as General Counsel in 2008. She has over 15 years’ experience practicing law, having previously been a corporate partner at Lovells, and a consultant at Weil Gotshal & Manges. Alison sits on the BVCA Legal & Technical Committee and has a degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University.

Michael T. Williams, executive vice-president & general counsel, Sony Electronics Inc.
As general counsel, Michael Williams leads and manages 72 professional and para-professionals in seven departments: Law; Corporate Security (including supply chain security & brand integrity unit); Trade Strategy & Compliance ( import, export and duty matters); Government Affairs (lobbying); Technologies Standards Office ( standards setting work) ; Community Affairs (charitable giving); and Ethics, Compliance and Personal Information Management. In addition, he serves as Regional Information Security Officer for the Company

Before joining Sony, Mr. Williams spent 22 years in private practice in Los Angeles, California where he represented Fortune 500 companies in a variety of aviation, antitrust, unfair competition, construction, product liability and commercial disputes.

Ian Leedham, senior counsel - commercial, National Grid Services
Ian is senior counsel (commercial) at National Grid, an international electricity and gas company and one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world.

Michael Ellis, director and associate general, GlobeOp Financial Services

Jack Diggle, partner, OMC Partners
Jack Diggle is a partner at OMC Partners and works with law firms and investment banks managing sourcing programmes across business lines and support practices. Some of his current work with law firms is leading the innovation of legal service delivery.

Prior to OMC Partners, he worked for 10 years in the investment banking sector, specialising in outsourcing and offshoring. He worked for Goldman Sachs and with ABN AMRO where he was instrumental in the development of their middle and front office offshoring programmes.

Jack has worked across Europe and Asia. He has developed both captive and third party offshoring solutions for clients. His particular strength lies in delivering pragmatic offshoring solutions in complex operating environments. A key focus is on building strong working relationships between on and offshore entities.

Richard Hennity, head of legal - group counsel, HSBC
Richard joined HSBC in 1999 as a legal adviser in the Group Legal department of HSBC Holdings plc in London providing legal support to the Corporate and Institutional Banking, Corporate Finance, Syndicated Finance and the Special Debt Products divisions. In this role, he also advised senior management in relation to a number of the Group’s proprietary transactions, including M&A and outsourcings.

In October 2000, he moved to the Group Strategic Planning department of HSBC Holdings plc, which reported directly to the Group Chairman. In this role, Richard assisted businesses in developing and communicating their strategic business plans, managed the Group’s financial planning process and managed a number of the Group’s proprietary acquisitions and disposals.

In February 2003, Richard moved to Singapore to take on the role of Head of the Legal, Compliance and Secretarial department of HSBC Singapore, which consisted of the legal, compliance, money laundering and fraud monitoring and investigations, document management and company secretarial functions.

Richard returned to Group Legal in London in March 2006, to support HSBC Holdings plc and HSBC Bank plc on a number of proprietary M&A and global projects.

In February 2007, he took on the role of Head of Legal - Group Management Office, HSBC Holdings plc. This legal department provides legal support to the senior management and global functions in HSBC's head office on various specialist matters including proprietary M&A, corporate, human resources, IT and global initiatives. The department is also responsible for setting legal policies and procedures for HSBC Group companies; managing, reviewing and guiding the Global Legal function; and legal risk reporting to the Board, audit committee and management board.

Leah Cooper, managing attorney, Rio Tinto
Ms. Cooper is responsible for the overall management of Rio Tinto’s multinational legal department comprised of over 100 lawyers. She also serves as General Counsel for EMEA. Prior to this role, Ms. Cooper served as Vice President and General Counsel for Rio Tinto Minerals, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto in Denver. Previously, she worked in both the energy and telecommunications sectors at AGL Resources and BellSouth respectively, where she specialized in technology licensing, intellectual property and privacy and data protection.

Prior to her move to Rio Tinto, Ms. Cooper was instrumental in founding the Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta; a non-profit designed to provide free legal services to other charitable non-profit organizations.

Jeremy Evans, general counsel (acting), Streamserve
Jeremy Evans has held senior roles in the Legal & Commercial departments of BBC Worldwide, BT, Siemens and Northgate Information Solutions. At Northgate, he was Head of the Legal Department.

He now runs his own commercial/legal consultancy, with his primary client being international software business StreamServe Inc. Amongst other activities, he is a member of the Editorial Board of the International In-House Counsel Journal (IICJ).

Paul Newton, head of group legal, BUPA

Ian Jameson, managing director & european corporate counsel, Lehman Brothers

Tim Cowen, general counsel, BT Global Services

Jasper de Gou, advocaat, competition counsel, Akzo Nobel

Philip Bramwell, group general counsel, BAE Systems
Before joining BAE Systems in 2007, Philip spent more than 20 years as an international corporate lawyer, specialising in mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceuticals, IT and telecommunications industries.

From 1998 to 2001 he was Chief Counsel, Mergers and Acquisitions for BT plc, prior to which he served as European General Counsel of Atlanta based BellSouth Corporation. He served as the General Counsel and Secretary of mobile phone company O2 plc from 2001 to 2006.

He has spent much of his career living and working overseas, undertaking major corporate transactions throughout Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East.

Gillian Haselden, deputy general counsel, Ernst & Young

Daragh Fagan, general counsel, EMEA markets division, Thomson Reuters
He joined Reuters as general counsel, EMEA in 2007, and manages a team of 15 lawyers (20 staff) covering Thomson Reuters financial and media businesses across the Europe Middle East and Africa region (spanning more than 50 offices and activities in over 100 countries). His experience comprises major corporate and commercial matters including the creation of the first Canadian-UK Dual Listed Company (Thomson Reuters), international dispute resolution including several $100m+ litigation, arbitration and mediation cases, and UK corporate governance issues. Thomson Reuters legal department was chosen as In-House Commerce & Industry Team of the Year in the 2008 Lawyer Awards.

Daragh has an interest in the use of technology to aid lawyers’ productivity, especially in teams, and has led the successful introduction of electronic matter management and archiving systems, as well as use of collaborative tools. He focusses on practical assistance and initiatives rather than pursuit of technology as an end in itself.

Stefano Fratta, competition counsel, Telefónica Europe
Stefano is Telefónica Europe’s competition counsel and is based in Slough (London). He has been with the Telefónica O2 group since April 2007. Stefano was educated in Italy, France and the Netherlands and is admitted to the practice in Italy and in the UK (established EU lawyer). Before moving in house, he was in private practice in Italy and Brussels, advising clients on EU competition law.
At Telefónica Europe, Stefano has worked and advised on competition matters, in particular Article 82 issues, including margin squeeze, predation, excessive prices, discounts, exclusive agreements and acquisitions under national and EU rules.
Stefano also participated in several cases in front of the Competition Appeal Tribunal as well as private antitrust damages actions in the UK and elsewhere in the EU. He is currently involved in the challenge brought by 4 UK MNOs against the EC Roaming Regulation.

Carol Hui, general counsel, BAA