International Corporate Counsel Committee

Minutes of Steering Committee Call (April 17, 2015)

Participants:
The Steering Committee held its call at 10:00 a.m. EDT (GMT-5). Present on the call were Meredith Barg Stone (Co-Chair), Peggy Kubicz Hall (Vice-Chair), Ingrid Busson-Hall (Vice-Chair), Christine Castellano (Steering Group Member), Hoyt Webb (Steering Group Member), Luisa Menezes (Steering Group Member), Stephan Grynwajc (committee member) and Bridget Leahy (committee member).

Timothy Howe (Co-Chair) and Vice-Chairs Nigel H. Roberts, Carole Basri, Norman L. Greene, Jason P. Matechak, and Holly A. Silver (Vice-Chair) were unable to attend as were the following members of the steering group: Sebastian Beller, David Butow, Jessica L. Cassel, Horst Ebhardt, Lyndsey Falconer, Marcelo Freitas Pereira, Elena Helmer, Ralph W. Hummel, Tanya Jaeger de Foras, Eury Pereira Luna-Filho, Jaiwook Lee, Michael L Martinez, Jln Murphy, John Nash Patton, Amanda Casal Pompeo, Jean-Claude Rivalland, Susan Kohn Ross, Ezekiel Solomon, Gerardo Francisco Viramont, Robert William Walker, and Joyce LaNell Williams.

  1. Meeting Minutes from the committee’s Monthly call were circulated to the committee membership with the meeting notice. There were no comments or suggested changes to the minutes and Hoyt Webb, chair of the Website sub-committee will begin to post minutes from the calls on the Committee’s webpage:
  1. The upcoming Spring Meeting 2015 was discussed. Corporate Counsel Committee activities and opportunities are as follows:
  2. Ingrid Busson-Hall provided an update on the Committee Breakfast which will be held on Wednesday April 29th at 8 AM. Committee members are encouraged to RSVP to the ABA if they wish to attend, there is no cost to attend the breakfast. During the breakfast, the Outstanding International Corporate Counsel Award will be presented to Gretchen Bellamy, Assistant General Counsel for Diversity at Wal-Mart, Stores, Inc.
  3. The Committee Dinner, which is a ticketed event, will be held on Wednesday April 29th at the Library of Congress, directly after the general reception. The committee will have one table and members are encouraged to register and attend.
  1. The committee discussed program planning for the 2015 Fall Meeting. The committee will be the sponsor of the following program at this meeting: Inherent Cultural Biases and the Use of Culturally Aware Outside Counsel and will be co-sponsoring the following additional programs: “Workplace Diversity Around the Globe: A Six Region Perspective”, submitted by the Diversity Committee; and "Growing your Business Responsibly” submitted by the Rule of Law Committee.
  1. The Co-chair noted that program submission for the Spring 2016 meeting will be due in approximately 2 months. This will be an agenda item for discussion on the May committee call. Information on a program included in the Committee’s 2014-2015 Business Plan update -"Prepping for the 30(b)(6): An In-House/Outside CounselCooperative Process”, which was not selected for the fall program, will be circulated by the committee co-chair and members are asked to consider if this program should be re-submitted for the Spring 2016 meeting, perhaps as co-sponsor with the litigation committee or whether we may want to consider another forum for this program, such as a brown bag web cast.
  1. An Update on the Foreign In-house Counsel task force was presented by Stephan Grynwajc. More input and involvement from in-house community would be welcomed. Stephan and Hoyt will coordinate to post the survey this task force has completed, which addresses the status of in-house counsel in 70 countries, on the committee’s webpage.
  1. Open Discussion
  1. The committee noted that the Working group on Business and Human Rights will meet during the Spring Meeting on April 29th from 11 AM to 12 noon in the Grand Canyon Room. Committee members who are interested in this working group should plan to attend and may get further information by contacting Lelia Mooney/Tony WinerCo-Chairs, Working Group on Business and Human Rights.
  1. The committee was informed about the upcoming Law, Justice and Development Week (LJD Week 2015) which will take place from November 16-19, 2015 at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Program suggestions should be sent to Christina Heid at the ABA by Friday May 1st.
  1. Ingrid Leahy has joined the publications sub-committee.

The Committee concluded its call at 10:35a.m. EDT.

The next committee call will be held on Friday May 15, 2015 at 10:00 AM Eastern Time (GMT-5).