SABMiller benefits from the trade deals and agreements that the EU has negotiated with countries around the world
Brewing giant SABMiller is one company that has firmly nailed its colours to the anti-Brexit mast.
The company’s general counsel and corporate affairs director John Davidson tells Legal Week: “As a multinational brewer with operations across the EU, we value the free movement across the continent of the beers our consumers love. The fact that our employees can easily move and work in different European countries, including the UK, helps our business to grow and provides for better career development within the company.”
He adds: “As a global business headquartered in the UK, SABMiller benefits from the trade deals and agreements that the EU has negotiated with countries around the world, which support a stable business environment and stronger rule of law.”
The survey of more than 200 in-house lawyers found they feel that the impact of Brexit would be bad for their companies for multiple reasons. However, it also found that while most (74%) do not want the UK to leave, more than a third (39%) fear it is going to happen.
One GC says: “Most corporates would say that the one thing everyone hates is uncertainty. If you take any set of regulations that are influenced by Europe, particularly in the consumer goods and services sectors, we have to question the way we deal with everything – from labelling to corporate structure. Each one of those regulatory issues will have to be dealt with individually. It’s not macro – it’s micro.”
One ex-senior partner at a Top 50 UK firm agrees that uncertainty is the driving force behind companies and firms’ decision to back the Remain camp.
He says: “There are a large number of law firms and companies who would support staying in because of the uncertainty an Out vote would bring. Because of how uncertain the outcome now appears this will be the biggest political choice any of us have got to make in our lifetime.”
The opposition is, in part, explained by the large amount of lawyers’ work that is conducted in other parts of the EU. The survey found that 42% of lawyers reported that 40% or more of their work involved at least one EU jurisdiction outside the UK.
Respondents were mostly upbeat about the UK’s chances of staying in the EU. Sixty-one percent of respondents said it was unlikely, or very unlikely, that the UK would leave the EU in the next five years but over a third (39%) said it was likely it would.
Divided opinions
In-house lawyers seem to be more pro-EU than the public stance of their companies would suggest. Earlier this year around a third of the heads of FTSE 100 companies signed a letter in support of Britain remaining in the EU.
The letter, published in The Times newspaper on 23 February, contains signatories including the bosses of budget airline easyJet, defence contractor BAE Systems and oil group Shell.
There’s a certain sensitivity around this subject [Brexit], particularly for retailers
However, many companies have chosen to remain neutral on the topic.
One general counsel of a FTSE 100 company tells Legal Week that the subject is “sensitive.”
They say: “There’s a certain sensitivity around this subject, particularly for retailers. They don’t want to be seen to be telling their customers what to do.”
While some law firms have chosen to come out in support of the vote one way or another (Allen & Overy and Fieldfisher have both now publicly backed the Remain campaign) many remain on the fence.
Alasdair Douglas, chairman of the City of London Law Society which has taken a neutral stance on the topic, said it would be “presumptuous” to back one viewpoint in particular. He said: “We have chosen not to take a stance because it’s presumptuous for us to tell our members how we think they should vote. We wouldn’t do that in a general election, so why would we for this?”
Yet the survey shows in-house lawyers do want their leaders to speak out. The survey found 81% of in-house lawyers want to see top lawyers and sector leaders take more of a stand. This mirrors an earlier survey of partners by Legal Week that showed 74% wanted firms to take a public stance.
One in-house lawyer who took part in Legal Week‘s latest survey demanded to know: “Where is the strong voice from the legal industry, advising business and industry of these risks?”
With just under 10 weeks to go until the referendum takes place, there is still time for firms and their management to confirm their positions and add their voices to the debate.
Further comments from the in-house community
- “British voters are well-advised to think about the positive effects the EU has brought to them — splendid isolation will not work in this day and age!”
- “Those who have benefitted so much from globalisation and internationalisation – ie. many/most commercial lawyers in London – should be prepared to speak in its defence and in favour of remaining in the EU.”
- “I think Brexit would be more manageable than the doom-mongers would like to think and that, although this would result in some significant legal work, the profession should stay out of the debate lest it look like it has a vested interest (as some of the other contributors to the debate have already done).”
- “It is without doubt that the EU needs reform, but then all western democratic institutions do (consider the US). However, the idea that leaving the EU will do anything other than create a whole new smorgasboard of problem is false. If one feels that Britain needs to have access to the single market, one must vote to remain within the EU. It is hard to imagine a circumstance post-Brexit where the EU would give access to the single market on better terms that we have right now.”
- “The current debate in Parliament and in the British press focuses mainly on the politico-cultural, socio-economic and (of course) perceived commercial advantages or otherwise of leaving the EU. But what about the legal context as it applies to business: EU legislation and case law? Is absolute sovereignty actually an advantage?”
- “What about the fact that from this point forward EU law will of course continue to evolve…as would UK legislation: each body of law could “do its own thing” and therefore just radically complicate life for industry, which will have to become familiar with and navigate what could be major (rather than minor) differences between UK and EU rules?”
