FT's legal chief on how his job impacts the company's growth

Alex Aldridge of LegalWeek interviewed to Financial Times general counsel Tim Bratton about how his job is connected to the business newspaper’s growth goals.

Aldridge writes, “Although Bratton sees his role at the FT as ‘essentially pretty similar to many other in-house legal jobs,’ there are, he points out, some unique challenges involved in working for the organisation. Many of these relate to the FT’s goal of increasing revenue from its digital business. This means fluency in copyright law is a prerequisite for the FT’s in-house lawyers, alongside an ability to think commercially about an area that to date has proven notoriously difficult to make money from.

“Bratton comments: ‘We pursue a strategy of selling usage rights accessible to clients who purchase a licence via a range of platforms, including the newspaper’s website FT.com, iPad or BlackBerry apps and platforms established by third parties which are licensed to provide FT content, such as LexisNexis. This obviously throws up a range of legal issues which have significant commercial implications.’

“Handling these involves the team working closely with the sales division and the company’s financial decision-makers, with Bratton himself reporting to FT chief financial officer Scott Henderson. The exception is media lawyer Julia Apostle, formerly of DLA Piper, who deals with editorial-related legal concerns and sits permanently on the FT’s news desk.”

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