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Helping boards do better

Directors face greater responsibilities than ever before. Balancing risk, reputation, and value creation is crucial. Legal and regulatory obligations have become complex and non-delegable. Decisions on corporate governance, climate change, human rights, cybercrime, and taxation are now business-critical.

What is Boardroom Counsel?

Boardroom Counsel gives you the holistic advice your board needs to create and execute your strategy. By going beyond legal services, we deliver the highest level of support for your business and are a single source of trusted guidance to senior leadership.

Our first step is understanding your business, objectives and goals – and your immediate and future challenges. There’s rarely a single solution to a problem, or one perfect business strategy. So our partners and consultants will work with you to give you the best possible advisory position.

Boardroom Counsel helps business leaders gain a competitive advantage that’s strategic, durable, hard to replicate and risk-adjusted, backed by the resources of a leading global law firm.

We can deliver the best advisory position across any challenge or industry sector, such as:

  • Corporate governance and directors' duties
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Environmental, social and governance
  • Conflict resolution and stakeholder activism
  • Boardroom composition
  • Responsible business practices and human rights
  • Remuneration and incentive plans
  • Pension schemes
  • Taxation strategy
  • Financial restructuring

Benefits of Boardroom Counsel

  • Your board will feel empowered to make better and more resilient long-term decisions
  • They’ll have confidence the guidance they receive is evidence-based and sector specific
  • An enhanced brand and a greater license to operate
  • Lower cost of capital with higher profits
  • A board that thrives in a crisis while others lose focus

How Boardroom Counsel has already helped

The courage to say no to a big commercial opportunity

A global services provider wanted to establish a new business in Australasia to provide services to the government. But this opportunity came with several serious human rights risks.

The business engaged Boardroom Counsel to advise its directors on these risks and help them decide whether to proceed. We assessed the potential impact of risks and whether they could be prevented or mitigated. Following our advice, the board decided that proceeding was not in the long-term interests of the company – a decision it hasn’t regretted. It can take courage to say no, but the best decisions link courage with sound advice.

Resolving stakeholder conflict successfully

An asset manager client was facing a claim from a private individual about bond investments made on their behalf. The litigation introduced contagion risk and regulatory consequences. Boardroom Counsel provided support in two ways. First, we advised on reviews of investment processes. Second, we organised defensive and offensive litigation teams. All while our insurance team advised on coverage issues.

This holistic support, specific to the asset management sector, made the difference between the client’s solvency and insolvency. Our team helped it avoid regulatory sanction, shut down the claim, and obtain judgment against the Hong Kong-based bond issuer.

Helping directors understand risks and responsibilities worldwide

A global geotechnical business wanted a governance upgrade, starting with ensuring its directors understood their roles and responsibilities across 40+ jurisdictions. Most law firms would simply send over dozens of separate briefing notes – which would vary in consistency and quality because they had to outsource many jurisdictions to local firms.

We handled nearly all 40+ jurisdictions ourselves, with high quality control for every briefing. And we went further, creating a red-flag executive report on key risks and how to mitigate them. This helicopter analysis wove together all the jurisdictional issues that could lead to liability for not just the parent company, but also directors personally. We then held webinars for the directors, answering their questions and asking how they’d deal with particular scenarios. The outcome: risk reduced globally, in a client-centric manner

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