Hildegard Bison Takes Counsel Spots at FVC Rhine and BP Europa

Lisa Shuchman

Corporate Counsel

12-17-2012

Hildegard Bison has a new home as the legal head of FVC Rhine and assistant general counsel of BP Europa and parent company BP.

Bison was a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Düsseldorf before joining the global oil mammoth. She worked at the prominent international law firm for 18 years, specializing in mergers and corporate law. Freshfields has been a longstanding adviser to BP, and advised the company on some of its many legal issues in the aftermath of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Some of the company’s top talent has wandered off for greener pastures since then, with global assistant GC Adrian Morris leaving to become the general counsel of Tesco plc in September.

BP went on a selling spree in 2012, selling significant assets to fellow oil and gas biggies OAO Rosneft Oil Company, Plains Exploration & Production Company, Marathon Petroleum Company, Linn Energy LLC, and Tesoro Corporation.

Bison has a cosmopolitan, wide-ranging background. She received an LL.M. degree (Master of Laws) from the University of Chicago Law School and a J.D. from the University of Bonn. She is licensed to practice in the state of New York as well as in Germany. Prior to joining Freshfields, she was a foreign associate at Windels, Marx, Davies & Ives (now Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf) in New York. She is a lecturer at the Center for Anglo American Studies at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.

The 49-year-old attorney replaces Klaus-Günther Hahn, who left BP in early 2012.

BP Europa covers BP’s operations in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Poland.