Creating value for the business: Ericsson in-house interview

CLP's editor David Tring spoke with Ericsson's general counsel Tom Nygren about their R&D facilities in China

What is the general structure of Ericsson's legal department?

Ericsson is organised into 11 regions worldwide – 10 geographical regions and IPR and licensing. I am heading the northeast Asia region, comprising mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. In addition, I am a member of leadership team, which means I report to the head of the region, but I also report to the global general counsel of Ericsson. Legal representation in the region is quite lean, including myself we have six lawyers in China, four lawyers in South Korea and one in Japan. Hong Kong and Taiwan is supported from China. Trade Compliance is also organised under legal affairs and we have a number of trade compliance officers in our legal entities and R&D.

Ericsson in-house lawyers are truly general lawyers handling different legal matters specific to the need of each case, but we do not give advice on tax law or labour law – those areas are so specific and niche we use external counsel most of the time. We also use external counsel as little as possible, but when we do lack competence, like in litigation, we use them and also in complicated M&A deals, at least for some leg work because it is quite work intensive.