Lex Mundi’s 2026 General Counsel Summit report, published this week, highlights how state intervention, sanctions and extraterritorial regulation are increasingly disrupting investment and supply chains. This in turn is weakening contract reliability and regulatory stability.
The report argues general counsel must move beyond traditional scenario planning and instead focus on the ability to use disruption to their advantage. To do this, they must build an ‘antifragile framework’ by identifying elements of the business prone to break under stress—the report offers the examples of overcentralised decision-making, super-optimisation of processes leaving little room for volatility, opaque systems that may suppress undesirable information, and inflexible standardisation across jurisdictions. These pitfalls may apply specifically to the coordination of cross-border legal advice as well as more generally.
General counsel should, the report suggests, embrace ‘optionality’, for example, by fostering parallel supplier relationships so the company can pivot in the event of a geopolitical or regulatory shift.
The report, ‘Embracing geodisruption: general counsel, corporate diplomacy and antifragility’, draws on insight from senior corporate counsel at multinationals and other experts who attended its summit in Versailles in October.
Helena Samaha, CEO and president of Lex Mundi, said: ‘Legal leaders are no longer operating solely as advisers on compliance and risk, but as strategic partners engaged in corporate diplomacy—navigating divergent regulatory regimes, managing sensitive stakeholder relationships, and helping boards make decisions in conditions of profound uncertainty.
‘What distinguishes leading organisations today is their ability to build anti-fragility: the capacity to adapt, respond and even gain strength from volatility. That requires global perspective, deep local insight and legal teams that are empowered to anticipate change rather than react to it.’
