Christy Baker

FirstGroupGeneral Counsel

Christy Baker is General Counsel at FirstGroup plc, where he has responsibility for strategic legal issues across the group, providing support to the board and its committees, as well as to the divisional leadership teams. His recent experience includes leading on the implementation of the group’s strategic disposal programme, including the recently announced £3.3bn class 1 transaction to dispose of its North American contracting businesses, as well as leading the successful defence against an activist investor’s board takeover attempt in 2019. He also has significant litigation experience, having overseen cases at all levels up to and including the Supreme Court. With a background in EU & UK competition law from his nine years at Freshfields, he also advises on a wide range of competition and merger control issues. He was responsible for delivering the group’s GDPR compliance programme in 2018 and now has overall responsibility for the group’s compliance programme worldwide, and chairs the anti-bribery and modern slavery steering committees.