Background

Recent years have seen fundamental changes in society’s expectations for business relating to a wide range of environmental, social and geopolitical concerns. At the same time, business is in the early stages of a coming wave of rapidly-proliferating and powerful new technologies which present significant new business opportunities and societal challenges. As pressure mounts for commercial businesses to play a leading role in addressing societal concerns and managing technological risks, General Counsels and in-house counsel must take a leading role in guiding the decision-making processes of their companies.

The General Counsel network group is a forum for developing a practical approach to providing commercially relevant legal guidance, grounded in an understanding of business strategy, and with a focus on value creation. Participants will work collaboratively and with carefully chosen external experts to develop the knowledge, tools, and skills to act as an effective sparring partner for business management and to handle increasing challenges and demands in a global world.

You will engage with experienced professionals in a discussion of current themes and issues. Participants will share perspectives to gain a greater business understanding for the decisions that companies now and over the coming years will have to make in a rapidly changing environment. 

The network leaders, together with the group members, will decide the agenda at the meetings and choose topics that the group finds to be relevant and of particular interest. Presentations will be from both external speakers and members of the network.

Some proposed topics that can be taken up and discussed:

Intellectual property
The network group discusses how to manage risk associated with using or creating new AI tools, while empowering the business to explore using this powerful emerging technology in new and creative ways. Areas of discussion may include: (i) pre-training, tuning, and enriching output of stateless models; (ii) US litigation against MidJourney, OpenAI and Microsoft and the potential for end user vicarious liability; and (iii) open source and self-hosted models (e.g., llamafile).International Business and Disputes
The network group discusses the key challenges and risks to consider when operating and/or expanding internationally, from permanent establishment, to choice of law, legal venue, limitation of liability, and indemnification in an international context. The discussion can include operating in the United States, including its particular challenges from patent troll litigation in Texas, to CFIUS and US export controls.Compliance
Companies face a growing array of regulatory compliance obligations like ESG, GDPR, competition law, and consumer protection, stemming from local legislation, EU/EEA regulations, and international mandates. For example, Norway introduced a Transparency Act, while the EU implemented CSRD and CS3D, and the US SEC adopted new cybersecurity and climate disclosure regulations, all prioritizing third-party due diligence and risk management practices, yet lacking alignment. The network group deliberates on practical strategies for designing and scaling these practices to meet regulatory demands and investor expectations, while optimizing business value.

   

Corporate governance
Increasing requirements and risks faced by businesses today requires sound business operations to enable optimized value creation and meeting strategy goals. The network group will discuss what sound business operations might look like and how to mitigate/meet the necessary risks/requirements/opportunities. This can relate to structuring of general assembly and board work, governance models, company structures, M&A, etc.General counsel leadership
General Counsels / head of Legal & Compliance must secure resilient leadership skills establishing legal teams that strengthen business governance, that provide legal and compliance clarity in today’s risk environment, that create next gen legal support/departments securing legal processes that are creating value to the business. The network group will share and discuss experiences and competences to strengthen the needed skills and mindset for a thriving legal department.

Target group

The network is directed towards General Counsels, head of legal, legal director and/or compliance/corporate governance/ethics, and other leading lawyers.

It is possible to become a member of the network as long as there are available places. This can be either from the start of the season or during the year. The places in the network are personal, with the aim of ensuring that the network participants continuously meet, and thus also get an optimal benefit from the relationships that are built and the professional network that is created.