Interim Chief Governance and Legal Officer — Renewal

Settle, defend or exit: the claims portfolio as a whole

Claims are often managed one at a time, by the lawyers closest to them, on the merits as those lawyers see them. That is sensible for each case and expensive across a portfolio. The Interim Chief Governance and Legal Officer is appointed for 24 months, reporting to the Regional President, to set a consistent approach to which claims are settled, which are defended and which the organisation should find a way to exit, and to hold that approach with executive authority.

Three questions for each claim

Whether to settle, defend or exit turns on more than legal merit. What will it cost to see through, in money and in senior attention? What does winning actually secure, and what does losing actually risk? And what does the decision signal to clients, counterparties and future claimants? A good claims policy answers those questions the same way every time, so that a settlement is a deliberate trade rather than fatigue, and a defence is a choice rather than pride.

Authority that gives the policy teeth

A policy without authority is a suggestion. The officer therefore decides who may settle what, and at what value, leaving defined thresholds with local leadership, and chooses the evidence on which spending, legal capacity and control are judged across the group's markets. No claim strategy proceeds without someone who owns its cost. Commitments that no longer earn their place are paused or closed, proposals that slide their cost onto an unwilling party are stopped, and spending is refused where its case ignores who will use the result, what it relies on or how it could fail. The officer shapes the leadership team and the escalation route, breaks deadlocks between the Regional President and operating leaders, and sets a board cadence that surfaces progress, exceptions and open decisions.

Three moments over two years

Ninety days in, there should be an agreed claims policy setting out when to settle, defend or exit, with an owner and a standard of evidence for every claim. Around month nine each open claim should have been assessed under that policy, with legal and governance exceptions reported through the board cadence rather than handled out of sight. By month 24 the approach should be embedded across the group's markets, with governance decision rights and the routes for escalation settled.

Claims experience that counts

Your record includes a carve-out, a joint venture and a turnaround, three situations in which claims, warranties and disputed obligations tend to multiply. Your leadership covered businesses with $960 million or more in revenue, 3,300 or more people and a spread of at least seven countries, and your grasp of business and professional services comes from calls you made yourself, one of them a commitment halted before it could do harm. Before letting an exception stand, you find out who actually bears its cost. Disputes and investigations at level 3 is the obvious requirement; just as important are governance ethics at level 4, and transaction legal work and board and stakeholder management, both at level 3. After a claims decision you remain on the hook, right through to closing the legal exceptions it leaves behind.

From the Regional President to the directors

First comes the Regional President, who speaks with you confidentially over video in week 1. The third week is spent with the Risk Committee Chair on a live claims problem. In week 5 a panel of executives covering every function meets you face to face, and in week seven you meet the directors as a full board. We respond within four working days of each meeting.