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Interview: Ingo Steinwender Group Head of Legal Affairs at CA Immobilien Anlagen

Austria
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Ingo Steinwender is the Group Head of Legal Affairs at CA Immobilien Anlagen, a company that he has been with since August 2013. Before that he worked for IES Immobilien-Projektentwicklung in a similar role in Vienna for over 4 years, preceded by a little over 2 years with EYEMAXX Real Estate as its Head of Legal Affairs and Division Manager Ukraine. Steinwender’s experience also includes working for CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld Hlawati, Schoenherr, and Deloitte.

CEELM:

Please describe for our readers your career leading up to your current role.

I.S.: After graduating from law school at the University of Salzburg and passing a postgraduate program on European Studies at University Krems in 2001, I started my first job as a tax assistant at Deloitte in Vienna. 

In 2002 I joined Vienna-based leading law firm Schoenherr and worked in Vienna and as an expatriate in the Bucharest office. In 2005 I joined the law firm CHSH Cerha Hempel Spiegelfeld and worked in the Vienna office and again as an expat in the newly established Bratislava office. In 2006 I passed the Austrian bar exam and completed my doctoral studies at the University of Vienna.

After 6 years as a tax and legal adviser in two of Austria’s leading law firms and a big four tax firm I decided to change my professional environment by focusing on one permanent “client” and started to work as an in-house lawyer joining the developer EYEMAXX Real Estate as its Head of Legal in 2007. In 2009 one owner of EYEMAXX Real Estate left the company and I joined him to become Head of Legal in the newly established Austrian developer IES Immobilien Projektentwicklung, a family business. In August 2013 I took my career to the next level by becoming the Group Head of Legal at CA Immo, in my view one of the most attractive positions for real estate in-house lawyers in Austria, Germany, or CEE. 

CEELM:

You have worked in Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine. Which of these did you find most challenging to work in and why?

I.S.: Austria is a predictable jurisdiction with an – on the whole – very good functioning court and administrative system. When I worked in Romania in 2004 and 2005 during the pre-accession phase to the European Union there were continuously material amendments of laws resulting from the implementation of the acquis communitaire. It was pure lawyering as there was almost no published case law and very little literature, one had to rely on his own interpretation of the law.

In Ukraine from 2007 onwards we were regularly confronted with an incredibly time- and resource-consuming bureaucracy and situations where even Supreme Court decisions were made without any legal basis or where corruption hindered further investments. 

I cannot say that one jurisdiction was or is the most challenging. All were different and very exciting and I am happy to have had the opportunity to work in all these jurisdictions.

CEELM:

Having worked in both private practice and in-house, what do you find to be the biggest differences?

I.S.: Any in-house counsel requires not only very good legal skills, but also managerial and communication skills. He/She is an interface between different interests or departments. As a legal manager the in-house counsel has to proactively give shape to an efficient and as-simple-as-possible legal framework enabling his/her company to successfully conduct its business, and has to make decisions.

A lawyer in a private practice is an advisor of a company upon request and executor of decisions taken by the company. And  this is the biggest difference: a lawyer advises upon request on specific issues, whereas the in-house lawyer has to actively decide and actively look after all legal needs of his company, as the key is to understand the bigger picture.

CEELM:

In-house, you have worked exclusively in the real estate sector. What drew you to this field?

I.S.: The real estate business covers almost all areas of law and each phase in the life cycle of a property, from the first ideas for a green-or-brownfield investment to the sale of the developed property. It has its specific and always different legal issues. Since I have worked in the real estate business I have never had “boring” projects or routine work. This is what real estate business makes incomparably attractive and exciting to me

CEELM:

What does a “regular day in the office” look like for you? What type of work takes up the most of your time?

I.S.: My days always start in the same way – with a cup of coffee and a short chat with colleagues. Other than that – fortunately, there is no such thing as a “regular day in the office” with CA Immo, as there are many different Austrian and international projects, and transactions of every size and complexity come and go all the time.

As I have a very experienced, skilled, and independently-working team of 8 colleagues for whom I am very grateful, most of my time is taken up with legal management of CA Immo, and my own projects and transactions.

CEELM:

When you need to outsource work to external counsel, what are the main criteria you use in selecting the firms you will work with?

I.S.: In general we outsource specific legal issues requiring a high degree of specialization, litigation, due to work overload or due to a lack of in-house lawyers in our CEE markets.

In the selection process I do not rely on legal rankings (like Legal 500 or Chambers Guide) but on our company´s previous experience or recommendations from friends or colleagues. I do not select law firms, but lawyers in a law firm.

The three most important criteria in selecting lawyers are: (1) Experience and industry knowledge; (2) Quality of work; and (3) Response time. The fees of course count as well, but are regularly negotiable to our satisfaction and very similar across the market.

CEELM:

From an in-house perspective, what would you say makes Austria unique amongst CEE jurisdictions?

I.S.: As pointed out before, Austria has a very predictable and stable jurisdiction with competent courts and authorities. In general the Austrian business laws are flexible enough allowing each company to create a tailor-made legal environment for doing business.

The main difficulty however, apart from some strange mandatory legal provisions, which I would rather not go into further detail on, is the duration of court and administrative proceedings, which, to a certain extent, can be explained by an overload of cases and budget cuts. Compared to other CEE jurisdictions the problem, however, is a small one.

CEELM:

On the lighter side, what was the team-building exercise you participated in (at your current or previous companies) that you enjoyed the most and why?

I.S.: After several team-building events in different companies I am a master in building rafts and floating down torrential rivers. But the most important and most efficient team building happens every day and must not be planned. I think of spontaneous cups of coffee with colleagues, common lunches talking about private stuff, or an after work beer. This kind of team building I enjoy most, as this really works.

This Article was originally published in Issue 5 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.