The trouble with asking for legal advice is you do not always get the answer you want. This happened last year to Walter van de Vijver, Shell’s then head of exploration and production, when he was advised that the oil giant’s failure to disclose its overbooking of oil reserves was illegal. “This is absolute dynamite, not at all what I expected and needs to be destroyed,” was his response.
This neatly illustrates the tension that often occurs between in-house lawyers and their companies. On the one hand they are there to help their employers go about their business in as efficient and cost effective a way as possible. On the other, they have, at the very least, a professional obligation to tell their companies when they are over-stepping the mark – leading some executives to conclude it is better not to seek their advice rather than to be explicitly told they cannot do something.
