Legal News

Lawyer Poised to Take Helm at UBS

By Ashby Jones

High-fives all around! One of our gang is headed to the helm of a company, a very big company.

It’s happening at Swiss bank giant UBS, which announced today that it will ask shareholders to approve up to 15 billion Swiss francs in additional funds to shore up its dwindling capital base, largely the result of major losses on U.S. mortgage securities. Also embedded in the news: word that the bank’s chairman, Marcel Ospel, will not stand for reelection later this month. Nominated to replace Ospel: the bank’s general counsel, Peter Kurer (pictured). Here are stories from the WSJ and the Times of London.

Kurer joins a short list of lawyers who have, in the last several years, made the jump from GC to either CEO or chairman. To name a few: Chuck Prince at Citigroup, Jeffrey Kindler at Pfizer, Frank Blake at Home Depot, Dick Parsons at Time Warner, Michael Cherkasky at Marsh & McLennan.

Not all have fared well. Prince’s tenure as CEO ended in November with the bank engulfed in problems stemming from massive write-offs because credit-market turmoil. In December, Marsh’s board ousted Cherkasky, who as CEO had been unable to expand the company’s business. Kindler has faced his share of problems as well — Pfizer’s stock is down 15% since he took over.

Naturally, throughout the decade, there’s been a lot of talk about whether lawyers can make effective leaders. “Lawyers can be good at making judgments to mollify regulators,” Philip Howard, a lawyer at Covington & Burling in New York and a well-known crusader for legal reform who wrote the book “The Death of Common Sense” has in the past told the Law Blog. But lawyers, continued Howard, “may not be so good at taking the business risk needed or exercising the management skills to keep thousands of employees rowing in the same direction.”

As for Kurer, according to the Times of London article, he was regarded as one of Europe’s most influential in-house lawyers. He joined UBS from Homburger, a Swiss law firm.

Kurer, who is Swiss, reportedly studied at the University of Zurich and the University of Chicago and began his career at Baker & McKenzie, where he practiced from 1980 to 1990.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 31, 1969 (boomark / email).