Taking a new path is never easy. In 
order for GC to properly fulfill their 
role, there will be the continuing need 
to challenge strategy and proposed 
decisions where the risks are great 
and there is real legal exposure. It 
was acknowledged that there can be 
tension between a legal perspective 
and a commercial point of view. 
These areas of possible conflict were 
reported by 78% of Canadian GC. 
Conversely, only 6% suggested that 
such tension never exists. Despite 
this tension, there appears to be a 
payoff from GC spending more time 
anticipating legal risks related to 
business decisions. The reduction 
of disputes, litigation and regulatory 
problems was believed by 53% of 
Canadian GC to be a benefit of their 
enhanced and expanded involvement 
in business decisions. Only 18% 
believed that such GC involvement 
would not reduce tangible costs 
and risks.

There are contrary views. One GC said: 

“Not so sure that lawyers ought 
to develop non-legal skills. Some 
commentators are saying that the 
legal team should be more careful 
about pruning out non-legal tasks 
and outsourcing them to more 
efficient providers, and focus its 
efforts on true “legal” tasks where 
it can leverage its expertise.”

Facing the risk

Risk is one of the top agenda items for 
senior management and directors. All 
choices and decisions come down to 
recognizing, assessing and measuring 
risk and balancing those risks against 
the resulting benefits and returns.  
It is entirely understandable that risk 
permeates the life and perspective 

of GC in Canada. As a key advisor to 
executive management and directors, 
GC are focused on the most critical  
risks and their impacts.

In Canada, the number one risk for GC 
was seen to be “risk to reputation” 
while this risk only ranked fourth on 
global basis. Specifically, 53% of 
Canadian GC saw reputation risk as 
being significant compared to 38% 
of global GC. This difference in the 
perception and importance of reputation 
risk between Canadian and global GC is 
reinforced by the percentage of GC who 
said that this was not an area of any risk: 
in Canada only 2% of GC said reputation 
was not a risk area while 19% of global 
GC took this view.

Regulatory risk was the area of 
greatest concern to GC globally and 
was the second most risky area for 
Canadian GC. There is no question 
that Canadian regulatory requirements 
have increased dramatically in the past 

© 2013 KPMG LLP, a Canadian limited liability partnership and a member firm of the KPMG network of independent member firms 
affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.

At Risk

 

 

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 Volume 7, No. 1 

 

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