Mitsui Sumitomo to gain legal panel as new GC creates first in-house team
The former general counsel at Chubb Europe’s commercial lines department David Casement has left to form a new legal team at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group.
Casement took up the newly created role of general counsel and company secretary for Europe at the Japanese insurance giant last month. He is charged with building an in-house legal offering as well as forming the company’s first panel for external advice.
The insurer has never had an internal European legal function before, preferring to instruct a wide range of firms on an informal basis. These have included Beachcroft, Berrymans Lace Mawer, Clyde & Co, Ellum, Goodman Derrick, Hill Dickinson and Plexus Law.
The new panel will bring together all aspects of the company’s legal spend and will limit the number of firms it turns to for advice.
“I wouldn’t envisage using anything like the number of firms we use today,” said Casement.
As well as forming the panel and establishing an in-house team of up to four lawyers, Casement will also review all of the company’s legal relationships.
“It’s a chance to create something genuinely exciting,” said Casement. “It wasn’t easy to leave Chubb, but it’s not the sort of opportunity that comes around more than twice in a career.”
Casement was at Chubb for seven years. Chubb is understood to be in the process of recruiting Casement’s successor.
