SURVEY: more time spent on litigation than commercial advice


European in-house lawyers are experiencing a rise in the number of disputes they are dealing with, research by a City law firm has revealed.



A survey of 180 European general counsel by Lovells found that 38% of respondents said the number of disputes had risen over the past year, while just 14% said there had been a decrease.



In-house lawyers are spending 26% of their time on managing litigation, compared to 22% on commercial advice. Italian lawyers spent the most time on disputes (46% of their workload) while German in-house counsel spent only 18% of their time on litigation and Dutch lawyers just 13%.



Just under a quarter of respondents across Europe had been threatened with a class action, according to the report. Class actions were most prevalent in France, where one third of in-house lawyers had been exposed to them, while only 6% had seen them in Italy.



A third of lawyers said there had been a trend towards more multinational disputes in recent years. While in-house counsel were confident in dealing with international disputes within Europe, they were more concerned about disputes arising in other jurisdictions. Some 29% of European general counsel said they were most concerned about disputes involving the US, while 16% said China was the jurisdiction which caused most worry, and another 16% said Russia.



Lovells dispute resolution partner Lawson Caisley, author of report The Shrinking World, said in-house lawyers in European companies were worried about the 'processes involved and their lack of predictability' in the US, China and Russia.



He added: 'Companies which five years ago had little to do with, for example, China and Russia face a steep learning curve.'



The report noted that, against this background of new and unfamiliar markets, there had been a noticeable increase in the use of alternatives to litigation, such as arbitration and mediation, which were seen as a way of avoiding the costs, time pressures and risk to reputation that can arise from a major dispute.



Jonathan Rayner