Kent Walker, Google vice president and general counsel, testifies during a U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing looking into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections via the use of social media, on Nov. 1, 2017. Photo Credit: Diego Radzinschi/ALM got a big promotion Foley Hoag's Walker's promotion comes as the company appeals a whopping $5 billion fine from the European Commission for allegedly running afoul of antitrust laws. The Mountain View, California-based company is accused of leveraging its Android phone system to smother competition from other smartphone software makers. Walker has spoken publicly about all of those issues. Last year, when he and counsel for Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. were grilled during congressional hearings over Russian interference in the 2016 election, Walker said he was “deeply concerned.” Google wasn't the first to raise its general counsel to more of a public policy role, but the move could inspire others to follow suit. (Take Facebook, whose general counsel, Colin Stretch, recently announced that he's leaving by the end of the year—as the company is mired in its own transparency-related public policy issues.) Michael Peregrine, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Chicago, wrote in a June 24 post on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation that “CSR reflects the confluence of business performance; law and regulation; corporate governance; and social and environmental roles.”