Overview
International Corporate Counsel Jobs in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at Witan Search
Title: International Corporate Counsel
Company: Witan Search
Location: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
The Role
Our client is a global manufacturing business. Acting as a trusted legal partner to the business across commercial, corporate, compliance and employment matters, in a fast-paced, high-volume international in-house environment. The role suits a lawyer who thrives on ownership, values follow-through, and enjoys operating with autonomy inside a structured, disciplined team.
This is a genuinely hands-on position, combining substantive legal advisory work with structured contract review, matter administration and follow-through documentation. Discipline, attention to detail and comfort with meaningful transactional volume matter as much as substantive legal knowledge – the ability to close matters properly and on time is what defines success here.
Key Responsibilities
- Drafting, reviewing and negotiating a broad range of commercial contracts – distribution, service, NDAs, licensing and procurement – with business stakeholders across multiple jurisdictions.
- Advising on corporate governance and entity management for international subsidiaries, including board resolutions, powers of attorney and corporate records.
- Supporting employment and labour law matters across the international footprint, in coordination with HR and local counsel.
- Advising on data protection matters (GDPR and other applicable privacy regimes) and supporting enforcement of the group’s data protection policies.
- Supporting the anti-corruption, sanctions and trade compliance programme (FCPA, UK Bribery Act, EU/OFAC sanctions) within a US-listed public company framework.
- Supporting internal investigations and compliance escalations, in coordination with the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer.
- Managing the intellectual property portfolio in coordination with external agents, ensuring timely filings and renewals.
- Instructing and coordinating external counsel across jurisdictions, keeping matters on track and within budget.
- Identifying, assessing and mitigating legal risk proactively.
Must-Haves
- Law degree from an accredited institution.
- 4 to 6 years of post-qualification experience gained in a law firm and/or in-house at a multinational corporation.
- Proven experience in international commercial contracts and corporate matters.
- English to full working proficiency, written and spoken – all internal work product, headquarters communication and cross-border matters are handled in English.
- Fluent Spanish, for a Spain-based team.
- Ownership and accountability: takes matters from inception to resolution, manages workload proactively and honours commitments.
- Rigorous and detail-oriented, performing reliably under pressure with consistent execution and closure.
- Autonomous yet collaborative, with a strong sense of when to escalate and a habit of arriving at alignment meetings with a clear assessment and a proposed path forward.
Nice-to-Haves
- Exposure to compliance, data privacy or employment law.
- Experience within a US-listed public company governance and compliance framework.
- Prior work supporting EMEA, LATAM and APAC jurisdictions.
- Experience managing an international IP portfolio through external agents.
- Additional European languages.
What’s in it for you?
- A genuinely international remit – EMEA, LATAM and APAC, from a Spanish base, with the choice of Madrid or Barcelona.
- Direct reporting line to the Deputy General Counsel – International, with visibility to the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer.
- The breadth of a lean in-house team: commercial, corporate, employment, data privacy, compliance and IP, rather than a single narrow specialism.
- A platform to consolidate an in-house career within a US-listed multinational, supported by established systems and processes.
- Real autonomy and ownership, within a structured and disciplined legal function.
