About the Company
Our client is a leading global technology-driven supply chain, logistics, retail, and e-commerce platform, operating across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.
The company is listed on NASDAQ and ranked among the Fortune Global 500, serving hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. As part of its long-term international growth strategy, the business continues to make significant investments across Europe and is rapidly expanding its e-commerce, retail, marketplace, and supply chain capabilities across the region.
Today, the company has established teams across the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and other European markets, with ongoing expansion plans across the region.
The Opportunity
This is a newly created and highly visible intellectual property and brand protection position supporting the continued expansion of the company’s UK and European retail and online marketplace operations.
As the business scales, the successful candidate will advise on how the company protects its own intellectual property, manages third-party IP risk across the platform, and establishes a credible and scalable approach to brand authorisation, anti-counterfeit enforcement, infringing listings, grey-market goods, and marketplace brand protection.
The role will cover a broad range of matters, including trade marks, copyright, design rights, brand authorisation, licensing, distribution, notice-and-takedown, counter-notice procedures, IP enforcement, platform liability, and the IP-related requirements of the EU Digital Services Act.
The successful candidate will take meaningful ownership of the company’s European IP and brand protection framework while working closely with Brand Protection, Marketplace, Commercial, Category Management, Seller Onboarding, Product, Technology, Legal, Compliance, and Regulatory teams.
This role offers a unique opportunity to help build the company’s European IP and brand protection capability from the ground up and directly influence how a major global e-commerce platform protects its brands, works with third-party rights holders, and manages IP risk at scale.
Key Responsibilities
- Advise the business on a broad range of intellectual property matters, including trade marks, copyright, design rights, passing off, brand use, content, imagery, labelling, and advertising.
- Support the protection, management, commercialisation, and enforcement of the company’s own trade marks, brands, copyright, designs, and other intellectual property assets across the UK and Europe.
- Develop and maintain a scalable brand-authorisation framework, including processes governing authorised resellers, brand gating, selective distribution, parallel imports, and brand eligibility to trade on the platform.
- Draft, review, negotiate, and standardise brand-authorisation, licensing, distribution, reseller, settlement, and other IP-related agreements.
- Develop practical contract templates, guidance, decision frameworks, and negotiation playbooks that allow brand and IP matters to be managed consistently across different markets and product categories.
- Serve as a key legal contact for brands and intellectual property rights holders operating on or engaging with the marketplace.
- Advise Brand Protection and Marketplace teams on third-party IP risks involving counterfeit products, infringing listings, unauthorised sellers, grey-market goods, misleading brand claims, and misuse of protected content or imagery.
- Assess the legal basis for listing removal, delisting, account restrictions, seller suspension, repeat-infringer action, and other marketplace enforcement measures.
- Establish and oversee effective notice-and-takedown, notice-and-action, counter-notice, complaint-handling, and escalation procedures for IP-related complaints.
- Advise on the IP-related requirements of the EU Digital Services Act, including trader traceability, notice-and-action mechanisms, statements of reasons, complaint handling, and platform governance.
- Ensure that brand notices and IP complaints are assessed consistently, accurately, and in accordance with applicable legal requirements and internal policies.
- Partner with Seller Onboarding, Marketplace, Category, Commercial, Product, and Technology teams to embed brand-authorisation and IP compliance requirements into seller onboarding, product listings, category controls, and platform processes.
- Advise on the use of trade marks, brand assets, copyrighted content, product photography, marketing materials, packaging, product information, advertising, and promotional content across the platform.
- Handle pre-litigation and enforcement matters, including cease-and-desist correspondence, infringement claims, settlement negotiations, undertakings, and disputes with rights holders or alleged infringers.
- Coordinate with external counsel on litigation, registry proceedings, trade mark oppositions, enforcement actions, and other complex or multi-jurisdictional IP matters.
- Work closely with Legal, Compliance, Marketplace, Brand Protection, Product Compliance, Trust & Safety, Privacy, Regulatory, Customer Service, and Public Policy teams to ensure that IP issues are addressed within the wider platform governance framework.
- Monitor emerging developments in UK and EU intellectual property law, brand protection, anti-counterfeit regulation, platform liability, intermediary liability, and digital-platform regulation.
- Translate complex legal requirements into clear, commercially practical policies, procedures, controls, and recommendations for business and senior leadership.
- Support the development of a scalable IP and brand protection model that can be extended across additional European markets as the business expands.
Ideal Background
- A qualified solicitor or lawyer in England and Wales or an equivalent EU jurisdiction; dual qualification would be an advantage.
- Approximately 5–10 years of post-qualification experience, with a strong focus on intellectual property, brand protection, trade marks, copyright, design rights, or IP-related commercial matters.
- A background combining contentious and/or non-contentious IP work at a recognised law firm with relevant in-house experience at a scaled e-commerce, online marketplace, retail, technology, consumer goods, media, or consumer-facing business is strongly preferred.
- Strong working knowledge of UK and EU trade mark and copyright law, together with practical experience in brand protection and anti-counterfeit matters.
- Experience advising on counterfeit products, infringing listings, unauthorised sellers, grey-market goods, parallel imports, or online brand enforcement.
- Practical experience developing or advising on brand-authorisation, authorised reseller, selective distribution, brand-gating, licensing, or distribution arrangements.
- Demonstrable experience drafting and negotiating licensing, distribution, authorisation, reseller, settlement, and other IP-related agreements.
- Experience handling cease-and-desist correspondence, pre-litigation disputes, settlement negotiations, trade mark oppositions, infringement claims, or other enforcement matters.
- Familiarity with online marketplace IP governance, platform and intermediary liability, notice-and-takedown procedures, and the IP-related dimensions of the EU Digital Services Act would be highly valuable.
- Experience partnering directly with Brand Protection, Marketplace, Commercial, Category Management, Seller Onboarding, Product, Technology, Marketing, or Operational teams.
- Able to translate complex IP laws and enforcement considerations into practical, scalable business processes, contractual frameworks, and platform controls.
- Comfortable operating as a senior individual contributor, taking ownership of complex matters without relying on direct line-management authority.
- Strong commercial judgement and the ability to balance legal risk, brand integrity, rights-holder expectations, seller fairness, customer trust, and business growth.
- Highly organised, action-oriented, and comfortable managing multiple matters in a fast-moving international environment where frameworks and processes are still developing.
- Confident working with external counsel, opposing parties, brand owners, rights holders, senior leadership, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Fluency in English is essential. Fluency in a second European language—particularly German, French, Dutch, Spanish, or Portuguese—would be an advantage.
Why Consider This Opportunity
- Join a NASDAQ-listed Fortune Global 500 organisation during a major phase of European expansion.
- Take meaningful ownership of IP and brand protection across a fast-growing UK and European retail and online marketplace business.
- Help build a European IP framework covering trade marks, copyright, design rights, brand authorisation, anti-counterfeit enforcement, and platform governance.
- Shape how brands are authorised to trade and how third-party IP risk is managed across a large-scale marketplace.
- Build practical, scalable frameworks rather than simply maintaining an established IP model.
- Work closely with senior Legal, Compliance, Marketplace, Brand Protection, Commercial, Product, Technology, and Business leadership across Europe and global headquarters.
- Gain exposure to some of the most important and rapidly evolving areas of intellectual property, brand protection, e-commerce, platform liability, and EU digital regulation.
- Play a central role in protecting brand integrity and enabling the responsible growth of a major international e-commerce platform.
- Contribute to a framework with the potential to support future expansion across additional European countries.
Location
London, United Kingdom
Compensation
The compensation package is highly competitive and will be tailored to the successful candidate’s experience and seniority.