Legal Counsel, Employment
Remote
Job Level
SeniorLead
About the role
- Principal legal counsel and strategic legal advisor to the Board of Directors of the European Bank and senior management of the respective businesses and branches of the European Bank.
- Based in Brussels and leads the European Bank Legal Department across the region; reports to the General Counsel, EMEA and also into the European Bank CEO; Associate General Counsel.
- Attend European Bank board meetings and senior management committee meetings as advisor; attend the European Bank Executive Committee meetings.
- Provide effective legal advice on strategic and regulatory change programmes; revenue generating activity; management of disputes and/or litigation.
- Understand, anticipate and navigate legal issues and regional regulatory framework and jurisdictional requirements.
- In partnership with the General Counsel, EMEA, oversee structure, resources and talent of the European Bank Legal team and work with global Practice Area Leads for Corporate Legal and Litigation areas.
- Influence legal risk appetite; manage legal risk, processes and controls within the European Bank and branches; engage in RCSA review processes.
- Act as trusted advisor on strategic, regulatory and contentious legal issues; support responses to supervisory or enforcement actions and remediation programmes.
- Work with Office of Regulatory Relations to prepare/review key communications to regulators/supervisors.
- Oversee preparation of policies and procedures to ensure compliance across the region.
- Manage legal support for regulatory change and implementation projects; monitor responsibilities across legal team and sufficiency of resourcing model; manage legal department costs and Outside Counsel Policy compliance; oversee outside counsel advice and budgeting; act as relationship manager to key Europe law firms where appropriate.
- Engage with HR on talent, development and succession planning; develop talent and succession benches in European Bank Legal.
Requirements
- Qualified lawyer, in jurisdiction relevant to the European Bank, with at least 18 years PQE with a legal background in institutional/wholesale banking.
- Extensive management and leadership experience, including people management, ideally across multiple jurisdictions and where some team members may be remote.
- Broad range of substantive legal skills developed over an extended period of time including extensive in house legal and transactional banking operational experience at a global financial institution including over custody, clearing and settlement activities and banking regulatory frameworks; proven experience of leading the legal support for regulatory/strategic change and leading legal support to remediation programmes; and experience with top tier European and UK law firms, including extensive experience managing outside counsel on major deliverables.
- Extensive experience of interactions with regulators and/or industry bodies.
- Extensive experience of frequent interactions with legal and wider business/risk/compliance colleagues.
- Fluent (written & oral) in English as well as at least one other relevant European language.
- Familiarity with current legal, regulatory and market trends and initiatives impacting EMEA.
- Willing to embrace and engage in developing a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion.
