Genworth Financial is set to boost its in-house legal team with plans to expand capacity in Europe and review its outside counsel.

The US insurance company is looking to add a commercial lawyer in Italy and a compliance specialist in Scandinavia, with one further lawyer set to join from GE Capital. The hires, which will take the team from 19 lawyers to 22 – including 10 in the UK – follow the January appointments of Miguel Munoz Gaztanaga from Lovells in Spain and Guillaume Lachaud in France.

European general counsel James Rember is also in the process of reviewing relationships with external law firms, with the company already cutting back its legal advisers over the last 12 months from 28 to around 20.

New additions in the UK include Pinsent Masons and Osborne Clarke, which have joined longstanding UK advisers SJ Berwin and Slaughter and May.

Rember told Legal Week: "We do not have a formal panel but we have relationships with law firms in more than 20 countries in Europe.

"We are looking at countries where we have multiple law firms and are trying to reduce that number. The challenge is in getting in-house people on the ground who know the legal market well enough to aid the process."

Rember was promoted to European general counsel in early 2008, having previously served as legal and compliance director for the group's payment protection insurance business. He joined Genworth in 2001.