Nokia has formally appointed Louise Pentland as its chief legal officer after handing her the role on a temporary basis in September last year.

Pentland took up the post nine months ago while the communications company sought a replacement for former chief legal officer Carl Belding.

Belding died in September last year after falling from a hotel balcony during a business trip to Switzerland. He joined Nokia at the beginning of last year from IBM, where he was general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Pentland was the legal head of Nokia's enterprise business solutions prior to taking her new position and has held a number of senior positions in the company during the last ten years.

She will now permanently lead Nokia's international legal team which consists of more than 150 lawyers throughout 130 countries. The Scandinavian company does not operate a formal legal panel; instead instructing a large number of firms including Shearman & Sterling and Clyde & Co.

The news comes after Nokia and InterDigital agreed to drop patent cases against each other in the English courts.

The first of the lawsuits, which related to 3G mobile phone technology patents, was filed by Nokia in July 2005, with the cases finally settled earlier this month. However, the companies are still locked in dispute in the US.

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