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Elena Borisenko, the general counsel of Moscow-based Gazprombank, said she is focused on creating a more efficient legal department through technology and by further integrating legal with the business.

"If you want to be efficient and you have multiple tasks you have to be sure that you're not wasting time on resources that do not require a legal background," Borisenko said.

She explained the bank is still working on a way to automate all routine processes in the legal department.

"We are asking our IT guys to make the legal tech programs for us to complete tasks automatically," Borisenko said.

Borisenko also said she created a legal hub outside of Moscow that does legal work for the entire company.

"They have a strong law school and high-level lawyers there. We took the functions of supporting transactional business and put them there," Borisenko said.

The move turned out to be cost-efficient.

"We are confident that they are all high-level lawyers who provide support throughout the entire country," Borisenko said. "You can't always be sure that in every city you will have high-level lawyers. There you have the best practice. This is possible now with technology."

How do you feel about creating centralized hubs of in-house lawyers that work with the entire company? Let me know by emailing me at [email protected].

What's Happening

Risky Countries That Worry General Counsel

The anti-bribery group TRACE International released its annual report on the risk of corruption on Tuesday. The report shows the countries with the lowest risk of corruption are Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. However, the countries that companies should be wary of doing business with are South Sudan, Yemen, Venezuela and North Korea.

TRACE president Alexandra Wrage said more countries are getting on board with compliance and anti-bribery initiatives.

"The good news from in-house lawyers is that there's less resistance to due diligence, training and other components of a robust anti-bribery program," Wrage said. "Employees and business partners now expect these measures and so take them in stride."

The TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix, Wrage said, can help compliance professionals look at bribery as something more complex than a "simple transaction."

"The response to a bribe demand for a senior official in a thuggish, resource-rich dictatorship will be different than the response to a bribe demand from a low-level bureaucrat in a rural town in Southeast Asia," Wrage said. "The levels of corruption in both countries might be similar, but the response to each will be different."

'Death of Antitrust Leniency'

Applications for antitrust leniency are in decline, which is concerning antitrust defense lawyers. John Roberti, an antitrust lawyer and partner at Allen & Overy in Washington, D.C., told Corporate Counsel this is because critics of the application say the program is not working as intended. Roberti said companies should consider three things when deciding whether to file an application.

➤ Corporate leniency is important for companies who may have identified a violation of law. The application was created to help identify cartel activity and to give companies an incentive to cooperate with plaintiffs in civil cases.

➤ Different risks and costs have emerged. "The cost of the leniency application is increasing because to have an effective one, you have to file a lot of different places and each different regime has a different application. For a multinational, the upfront expense of doing it becomes pretty high. Second, there are now regimes around the world that have introduced the concept of private damages, and that is drastically increasing the risk with a leniency application," Roberti said.

➤ Doing the right thing. The Justice Department needs to consider how the new elements have affected companies' incentives to self-report. "If you have a clear-cut case of noncompliance, companies that want to do the right thing will file for leniency. But where you have a less clear-cut case or a valid defense, the incentive to seek leniency is less clear because of all of these uncertainties."

What I've Been Reading

There are 277 cases awaiting general counsel approval at the Federal Labor Relations Authority, according to a report in Fedsmith.com. The authority has gone nearly two years without a general counsel. Catherine Bird has been nominated for the position, but the Senate has not made an effort to confirm her. Because there is no GC at the agency, unions who file complaints against federal agencies cannot have their cases go forward.

The CEO of Parley Pro, Olga Mack, said there are five D's to show whether in-house counsel are effectively managing contracts, according to an opinion piece in Bloomberg Law. The five D's, according to Mack are digitization, decentralization of information, democratization of access, diversity of thought, and disruption. Those D's are how in-house counsel are going to have to adapt to contract management in the future as technology evolves.

Alphabet's board of directors is investigating its executives over inappropriate relationships, according to a CNBC report. Earlier this year, a former in-house attorney at the company, Jennifer Blakely, accused the company's CLO, David Drummond, of leaving her and their child after an affair with another employee.

Don't Miss

Tuesday, Nov. 19 – The Practising Law Institute will be hosting a Hot Topics For In-House Counsel event at the group's office in New York City. Topics covered will include developments in legal operations and artificial intelligence, the domestic and international antitrust landscape and intellectual property.

Friday, Nov. 22 – Dinsmore Legal Counsel will be hosting the 2019 In-House and General Counsel Symposium at the Columbus Bar Association in Columbus, Ohio. Topics will include corporate governance, cybersecurity and current trends in money laundering.

Monday, Dec. 2 – The Asian Pacific American Bar Association's Leadership Advisory Council is presenting a General Counsel Career Advice session on climbing the corporate ladder to the top at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney's office in Philadelphia. Speakers will include John Chou, general counsel of Amerisource Bergen; Lola Lin, general counsel of Airgas; and Jen Gerney, a consultant at Spencer Stuart.

On The Move

✦ Energizer ✦ Hannah Kim has become the chief legal officer of the battery maker. She previously worked as the company's assistant general counsel and is replacing Kelly Boss who plans on retiring from her role as general counsel. Boss will serve as executive counsel until next summer.

✦ AccuWeather ✦ Jennifer Chung, who has served as the acting general counsel of the weather service since July, has become the general counsel and chief legal officer of the company. She said she oversees a team of two other lawyers and looks to outside counsel for a large share of the legal work.

✦ CoreLogic ✦ Aaron Henry has been made the chief legal officer of the company as it undergoes an antitrust investigation. He previously served as the general counsel of MoneyGram International Inc. Henry takes over for Arnold Pinkston, who left the company in June.