AXA UK

• General counsel: Edward Davis.
• Team headcount: 35 lawyers.

The UK insurance division of French multinational investment group AXA has built a reputation for innovative cost efficiency and a driving ambition to retain challenging legal work in-house. Group GC Edward Davis also established the insurer’s first global legal panel as part of its ‘Ambition 2012’ strategy launched back in 2004. Davis has further grown his legal in-house team to 35 lawyers during that time and manages the group legal department, group secretariat and the UK compliance team. AXA’s total legal budget is almost £10m, of which approximately 70% is spent in-house. Former legacy Denton Hall lawyer Davis says his team heads, Emily Coupland, Mark Gardner and Sam Patel have done a fantastic job against a very tough agenda.

Major mandates for the AXA legal team in 2014 include completing a panel exercise in September that focused on identifying firms with innovative ideas that the business could work with on a medium-to-long-term basis. It also rebranded its SunLife Direct business and re-launched its product range, and carried out an efficiency review that resulted in a 20% reduction in the number of full-time equivalent staff in the department, alongside a 10% drop in external legal fees over a 12-month period.

Ongoing issues in the UK include the government’s pension freedoms reforms, over which the team is currently looking at its products and preparing for. Davis says it is ‘critical that in-house counsel are at the corporate coalface and involved in the business’ key priorities, playing a broader role than just providing legal advice, and really supporting the business to help achieve objectives’.