Senior International Counsel

Job Description

Location: London, UK

Coinbase has built the world's leading compliant cryptocurrency platform serving over 30 million accounts in more than 100 countries. With multiple successful products, and our vocal advocacy for blockchain technology, we have played a major part in mainstream awareness and adoption of cryptocurrency. We are proud to offer an entire suite of products that are helping build the cryptoeconomy, and increase economic freedom around the world.

There are a few things we look for across all hires we make at Coinbase, regardless of role or team. First, we assess whether a candidate demonstrates our values: Clear Communication, Positive Energy, Efficient Execution, and Continuous Learning. Second, we look for signals that a candidate will thrive in a culture like ours, where we default to trust, embrace feedback, disrupt ourselves, and expect sustained high performance because we play as a championship team. Finally, we seek people with the desire and capacity to build and share expertise in the frontier technologies of crypto and blockchain, in whatever way is most relevant to their role.

Read more about our values and culture here.

The role will be based in our London office and report directly to the Lead Counsel, Europe. Working closely with our London, Dublin, Tokyo and US-based executive teams, business stakeholders and colleagues in Legal and Compliance globally, you will play a key role in advising our operating entities outside the United States of America on a broad range of legal matters, including compliance with applicable e-money / payment services and financial services law and regulation, consumer protection law, product roll-outs and strategic initiatives. You will also establish and manage legal policies and procedures and assist with the smooth running of legal operations to ensure that our business receives the highest quality legal advice as we continue to expand globally.

What you’ll be doing:

• Work closely with business executives and the Compliance team to ensure compliance of EU and international operations outside the United States with applicable e-money / payment services and financial services law and regulation and digital currency exchange best practices
• Provide legal support to international operating entities. Includes responsibility for ensuring legal and regulatory compliance of new products and services, inter-company operating arrangements, commercial relationships and banking partnerships, retail and institutional terms of business, assisting the business in rolling out products and services to new jurisdictions and co-ordinating support and advice with the U.S. based legal team as appropriate
• Keep abreast of all regulatory and policy developments involving digital currency in Europe and other key international jurisdictions and assist Coinbase in its advocacy for effective regulation
• Continuously assess operating risks and legal needs and ensure that the legal department is equipped to provide outstanding support as Coinbase’s international business continues to grow
• Manage outside counsel effectively where they are engaged in connection with specific projects

What we look for in you:

• Qualified solicitor in England and Wales with approximately 5 - 7 years experience working in a regulated e-money / payment services or financial services institution in the UK (e.g. e-money issuer, payment service firm, broker dealer / asset manager) or in a law firm supporting such clients (ideally with some previous in-house experience)
• Strong familiarity with PSD2, 2EMD and/or MiFID II and broader financial services regulation is required
• Experience dealing with regulators such the Financial Conduct Authority, Prudential Regulation Authority and/or other key European regulators is preferred
• Ability to manage complex projects involving co-ordination across multiple time zones, challenging legal issues and tight deadlines
• Ability to work closely with Compliance to deliver co-ordinated input to the business and other stakeholders
• Ability to manage a large and varied workload and exercise excellent judgment, analytical rigour and commercial pragmatism. Must be able to provide crisp and practical legal advice to business executives across a broad range of matters with limited supervision
• Enthusiasm for and a basic understanding of digital currencies/blockchain
• Highly driven and proactive - keen to create process and structure and strive for continuous improvement
• Comfortable working independently in a fast-paced, growth-stage environment, subject to regulatory scrutiny, operating excellence and Coinbase’s demanding standards to operate the world’s most trusted digital currency exchange.

Coinbase is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and to review all of our job postings to minimize biased language. Coinbase does not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state or federal law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in a manner consistent with San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance and similar local laws.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates the way that we manage the data of job applicants. During this early phase of the application process, CB Payments Ltd (CB Payments) will be gathering and processing personal information (your data) in order to assess your suitability for the role in which you have applied. If you are unsuccessful during any point of this process then we are legally required to keep your data on file, for a period of time. We will keep your data in order to comply with employment law obligations only and for no longer than obligated to do so.

Under GDPR, we need your consent to process your application. With this form, we are providing you with notice on how your data will be processed as part of the application procedure. By signing this form, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required.

CB Payments is a data controller, meaning that it determines the processes to be used when using your personal data. Our contact details are as follows:

CB Payments Ltd (Coinbase)

CB Payments Ltd
9th Floor 107
Cheapside, London, United Kingdom
EC2V 6DN

Email - [email protected]

Data protection tenets

In relation to your personal data, we will:

• process it fairly, lawfully and in a clear, transparent way;
• collect your data only for reasons that we have stated in this document;
• only use it in the way that we have told you about;
• ensure it is correct and up to date;
• keep your data for only as long as we need it; and
• process it in a way that ensures it will not be used for anything that you are not aware of or have consented to (as appropriate), lost or destroyed.

Types of data we process

We hold many types of data about you, including:

• your personal details including your name, address, date of birth, email address, phone numbers;
• biological sex;
• interview transcript/notes; and
• information contained within your CV including references, education history and employment history.

How we collect your data

From the start of this process we will begin to gather information about you. This includes the information you would normally include in a CV or a recruitment cover letter, or notes made by our Talent recruiting team during a recruitment interview.

In some cases, we will collect data about you from third party employment agencies, this information will only be passed to us from the employment agency upon your consent.

Personal data is kept in personnel files or within CB Payments HR third party business systems and IT systems. The access to these systems is limited to those job roles where it is essential to access your records.

Why we process your data

The law on data protection allows us to process your data for certain reasons only, the reasons relevant to you during this process are:

• in order to carry out legally required duties;
• in order for us to carry out our legitimate business interests; and
• to protect your interests.

All processing carried out by us falls into one of the permitted reasons. Generally, we will rely on the first two reasons set out above to process your data. We need to collect your personal data to assess your suitability for the advertised role.

We also need to collect your data to ensure we are complying with legal requirements such as:

• making reasonable adjustments for disabled employees; and
• tracking our fair employment process.

Special categories of data

Special categories of data include:

• health;
• sexual orientation;
• race;
• ethnic origin; and
• religion.

We must process special categories of data in accordance with more stringent guidelines. Most commonly, we will process special categories of data when the following applies:

• you have given explicit consent to the processing;
• we must process the data in order to carry out our legal obligations; and
• you have already made the data public.

We will use your special category data:

• for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring (as is our legal obligation); and
• to determine reasonable adjustments (as is our legal obligation).

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of personal data in order to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights under employment law. However, we will ask for your consent to gather the information in the first place. You will have full control over your decision to give or withhold consent and there will be no consequences where consent is withheld, in the context of special data. Consent, once given, may be withdrawn at any time. There will be no consequences where consent is withdrawn.

Protecting your data

We are aware of the requirement to ensure your data is protected against accidental loss or disclosure, destruction and abuse. We have implemented GDPR compliant processes to guard against such.

Where we share your data with third parties, we provide written instructions to them to ensure that your data is held securely and in line with GDPR requirements. Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of your data.

How long we keep your data for

In line with data protection tenets, we only keep your data for as long as we need it. If unsuccessful during the application process we will keep your personal details, interview notes and your CV details, is kept for 12 months or as long as is necessary to comply with applicable immigration law (whichever is shorter).

Successful applicants will be provided with an employee privacy notice as part of the on-boarding process.

Providing Consent

CB Payments is committed to complying with the GDPR. You are entirely in control of your decision to give consent to our use of your data as requested in this form. You do not need to give consent. However, in order for CB Payments to assess your credentials you will need to supply consent in order for us to process your application.

Withdrawing Consent

You have the absolute unrestricted right to withdraw your consent at any time. We will stop processing the data for which you have withdrawn your consent. Please note however, we must keep some personal data in order to comply with employment regulation.

Change in Purpose

If the purpose of using the data for changes, we will seek new consent, setting out the new purpose. You can decline to give your consent, with no repercussions. Consent can again be withdrawn at any time once given.

Making a complaint

The supervisory authority in the UK for data protection matters is the Information Commissioner (ICO). If you think your data protection rights have been breached in any way by us, you are able to make a complaint to the ICO here: https://ico.org.uk/ if you are located in the United Kingdom, or to your local data protection authority.

Data Protection Officer

CB Payment’s Data Protection Officer is Lydia Lavender. Contact details are:

[email protected]