Legal Counsel

Barclays Overview

Barclays is a British universal bank. We are diversified by business, by different types of customers and clients, and by geography. Our businesses include consumer banking and payments operations around the world, as well as a top-tier, full service, global corporate and investment bank, all of which are supported by our service company which provides technology, operations and functional services across the Group.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we are opposed to discrimination on any grounds.

Working Flexibly

We’re committed to providing a supportive and inclusive culture and environment for you to work in. This environment recognises and supports ways to balance your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. Providing the opportunity for all our employees, globally to work flexibly empowers each of us to work in a way that suits our lives as well as enabling us to better service our customers’ and clients’ needs. Whether you have family commitments or you’re a carer, or whether you need study time or wish to pursue personal interests, our approach to working flexibly is designed to help you balance your life.  If you would like some flexibility, then please discuss this with the hiring manager.

About Legal

The Legal function provides legal advice to all of Barclays’ businesses and infrastructure functions, including areas such as transactional support,    litigation management, commercial contract support and general legal advice, and provides dedicated business-aligned support to all divisions of Barclays.

About Private Bank Legal

Barclays Private Bank and Wealth Management (PBWM) lawyers provide legal expertise to support the PBWM business. The PBWM business provides banking, credit and investment services to institutional and retail clients located in over 100 jurisdictions. The PBWM itself operates out of a range of jurisdictions; in addition to Switzerland this currently includes the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Monaco, Ireland, Dubai, India, Singapore and South Africa.

Overall purpose of role

The primary purpose of the role is to provide investments legal and regulatory coverage for Barclays Bank Suisse S.A. (“BarSuisse)”.Working with legal colleagues in London, Singapore and Monaco, this person will lead investments legal coverage in Switzerland.Primary jurisdictional responsibility is Switzerland, with support for investment questions stemming from EU regulation. The successful candidate will need the ability to work independently and flexibly, across a range of investment products and services offered by the Private Bank investment business, in order to identify risk and to plan for change brought by developing regulation.Further, the successful candidate will provide guidance and support to the PBWM businesses operating on a cross-border basis.Working with the global Legal investments team, the role provides exposure to a wide range of PB initiatives and jurisdictions and the individual will play a key role in PBWM’s global growth strategy.

The role holder will:

·Drive the identification and effective management of existing and emerging legal risks in relation to the investment businesses of BarSuisse.

·Provide proactive and commercial legal advice and general risk management support to the PBWM investments business.

·Develop and manage relationships to ensure that the assessment of risks and approach to current and evolving requirements are understood, suitably challenged, agreed and communicated.

·Take time to understand business drivers and operate with accountability.

·Embed and drive the effective delivery of the legal services to BarSuisse, ensuring a collaborative, seamless and consistently excellent service.

·Drive and support the development of an effective and efficient Legal Function across CB&P.

·Coordinate with lawyers across PBWM and CB&P, as required.

·Pursue strong controls and risk management of the BarSuisse and wider PBWM business.

·Liaise proactively and constructively with functional partners.

Key Accountabilities

·Provide support to the BarSuisse Investments team and the wider PBWM investments proposition globally.Key initiatives include private funds, structured products, derivatives, discretionary portfolio management, hedge funds, advice and direct investments.

·Act as a trusted advisor and deliver expert legal advice in relation to the laws and regulations across all investment product sets as well as Swiss ESG regulation.

·Be an active member of the PBWM Legal Investments team who are the primary legal coverage for Investments Products.Provide assistance with cross-platform projects as required, create consistencies/efficiencies across the investment product space and engage on investment regulatory projects impacting not only BarSuisse, but also the wider PBWM business;

·Support cross-border questions that arise from the global nature of BarSuisse’s clients.Provide analysis of cross-border risks associated with the offer, sale and placement of securities as well as the provision of advice and other services;

·Be the primary contact in BarSuisse for all investment legal queries.Help the BarSuisse, Head of Legal manage legal risk and build a consistently excellent legal function.Represent Legal at governance forums as required

·Provide a best in class legal service that enables the PBWM business to deliver on their objectives, whilst effectively managing legal risk and ensuring good outcomes for PBWM clients;

·Provide input to the strategy and delivery of initiatives both within the BarSuisse Legal team, but also the wider PBWM Legal function and Private Bank businesses;

·Have good working knowledge of ESG regulation and manage the legal side of ESG regulatory implementation for BarSuisse.Advise BarSuisse on ESG strategy (working with Barclays ESG teams); and 

·Work collaboratively with members of the PBWM Investment Legal team, the wider Legal function, the PBWM business and other infrastructure functions to:

oassist with the development of new products;

owork cross-jurisdiction to solve for legal issues in various PBWM booking platforms; and

oprovide input to new and existing policies and procedures to ensure that any changes to processes are within the permitted legal and regulatory framework;

Stakeholder Management and Leadership

Key stakeholders:

·General counsel for CB&P

·Head of Legal for PBWM

·Head of Legal for Switzerland, PBWM (line manager)

·Business and infrastructure teams in PBWM.

Decision-making and Problem Solving

·Understands well the complex issues around investment products and services

·Acts as a trusted advisor to business teams, other control functions and other infrastructure areas

·Good understanding of commercial drivers and external environment in own coverage areas

·Uses excellent problem solving skills

·Makes timely and difficult decisions and articulates these clearly

Risk and Control Objective

Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Barclays Policies and Policy Standards.

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

·Ideally a Swiss qualified lawyer with experience of working in a top law firm and/or in-house with a top financial services organisation;

·Strong experience in investments products and services;

·Proven technical expertise in financial services regulation with the ability to work across a broad set of products and services, and sensitivity to the issues presented by a private banking business;

·Strong interpersonal and communication skills, shares knowledge proactively, works effectively as a part of a team and takes ownership and sees matters to completion through effective prioritisation and a commitment to teamwork; and

·Together with understanding business objectives, displays initiative and commitment, builds trust, and builds strong relationships especially with other colleagues in the Legal function. 

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

·Experience in advising / supporting a global business from a cross border perspective with a range of client / customer needs, including previous experience in or advising a private bank;

·Identifies legal and commercial risks within the framework of the firm’s governance and risk policies, knows when to escalate and integrates with other core risk and control functions;

·Understands external spend drivers and identifies cost-saving opportunities and works effectively within time, resource and budget constraints; and

·Displays initiative and commitment, and builds trust, and builds strong relationships, especially with other colleagues in the Legal function and takes a pro-active approach to self-awareness and own personal development, and supportive of others’ development. 

Purpose and Values

We deploy finance responsibly to support people and businesses, acting with empathy and integrity, championing innovation and sustainability, for the common good and the long term.

Our values underpin everything we do: Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship.

Respect

We harness the power of diversity and inclusion in our business, trust those we work with, and value everyone's contribution.

Integrity

We operate with honesty, transparency and fairness in all we do.

Service

We act with empathy and humility, putting the people and businesses we serve at the centre of what we do.

Excellence

We champion innovation, and use our energy, expertise and resources to make a positive difference.

Stewardship

We prize sustainability, and are passionate about leaving things better than we found them.

Our Mindset shapes how we take action, living by our Values, driven by our Purpose, always with our customers and clients at the heart of what we do; our Mindset is to Empower, Challenge and Drive.

Empower

Trust and support each other to deliver. Make decisions with those closest to the topic. Include diverse perspectives. Celebrate success and learn from failure.

Challenge

Question whether things can be done better. Use insights based on data to inform decisions. Be curious about how we can adapt and improve. Speak up and be open to alternative viewpoints.

Drive

Focus on outcomes. Deliver with pace. Be passionate and ambitious about what we do. Take personal responsibility. Actively build collaborative relationships to get things done.