Senior Legal Counsel, Regulatory; APAC

LEGAL

The Legal team is a strategic business area ensuring we navigate the complexities of a global business and acting as guardians of our legal integrity, providing expert advice to protect our interests, manage risks, and ensure compliance.

Our office is near Porto, in the north of Portugal, and is located in a vibrant business hub. It offers a dynamic and welcoming environment where our employees can connect and network with a large community of tech professionals.

The Legal Team at Farfetch is seeking a Senior Legal Counsel, Regulatory (APAC) for a broad regulatory role with a focus on the APAC region. This is a unique opportunity to lead on matters in APAC (Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Taiwan, Mainland China, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand) within a global, fast‑moving and innovative business. You will enjoy a broad and diverse role, delivering high quality strategic legal advice across multiple operational territories in conjunction with our wider international Legal Team.

Acting as a true business partner, this role requires someone who is commercially minded, intellectually curious and hands‑on, able to quickly understand and apply new sets of international laws and regulations—identifying and mitigating risks, as well as seizing opportunities. It is a role for someone with strong professional ethics and the energy, interest and experience to pursue a broad array of regulatory matters.

• Provide proactive, strategic and pragmatic advice on areas of managing legal risks in the external business or regulatory environment
• Advise on the local regulatory framework, including payments, digital regulation, consumer protection and competition law in APAC
• Tracking and assessing existing and new requirements for the Farfetch Group, as well as advising on their implementation
• Identifying, monitoring and evaluating relevant regulatory risks and enforcement trends, and taking proactive steps to mitigate these
• Developing strategies for, and engaging with, relevant regulators in APAC
• Oversee payments‑related matters in APAC, including reviewing the contracts and cooperation with payment processors and ensuring a compliant payment model for the regions responsible
• Work with the delivery team on tariffs matters and advising from legal perspective
• Negotiate, draft and review a broad range of commercial contracts, policies, guidance, corporate documentation and other legal documentation as required by the APAC business and entities, in collaboration with the broader Legal Team
• Building compliance processes, tools, policies and training to educate relevant parts of the Farfetch Group
• Liaise with external law firms, primarily in APAC, where external local support is needed
• Supervising and supporting legal counsel(s), in particular a local Legal Counsel based in and focused on mainland China, in their daily work, namely, BAU contracts review, legal advice giving, co‑sec handling to work efficient and smart
• Supporting the Head of Legal, Regulatory and Group Legal VP on legal matters, and especially in ensuring compliance

• Be a qualified lawyer with at least 6 years' PQE, and superior analytical skills and creative problem‑solving skills. Prior in‑house experience would be beneficial
• Have excellent training, preferably in a top tier law firm
• Have experience advising on digital regulation and/or payments
• Have proven ability to assess new pieces of international legislation / regulation and apply them on a risk‑based basis to a business
• Have the curiosity and ability to absorb a lot of information quickly, apply it in assessments, and drive implementation
• Be able to understand nuances and complexities, and translate these into commercial, pragmatic, and concise advice in the context of a global business
• Have a strong work ethic and attention to detail, be highly proactive, organized and efficient, able to work on fast‑moving projects
• Be able to work autonomously but also well in teams, supervising legal counsel and supporting the VP of Legal and Head of Legal (Regulatory)
• Possess excellent communication, organization and drafting skills
• Be driven, forward‑thinking, robust,…