Booking.com’s Regulatory and Financial Crime Risk Management (FCRM) Program consists of two functions - a core legal component and a program and project management team. Together, the Program is responsible for preventing, and detecting the broad range of emerging regulatory, sanctions and trade, economic, and financial crime risks attendant to our business.

This Regulatory and FCRM legal role is accountable for providing strategic advice and actionable guidance on emerging regulations and risk (including primarily on economic sanctions decisioning) to Booking.com’s business units and corporate functions, while the program and project management function coordinates the implementation or operationalization of advice received through controls design/implementation, training/awareness, and monitoring/testing.

The Senior Legal Counsel, Regulatory & Financial Crime will be responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining strategic engagement and awareness-raising on FCRM legal aspects within the business. You will work closely with other verticals within the Compliance, Legal & Public Affairs, Payments, FinTech, Internal Audit at Booking.com to develop best-in-class approaches for addressing risks of adverse financial crime impacts throughout our value chain.

You will also provide Regulatory and FCRM legal advice on day-to-day matters and escalations. In this role, you will be responsible for providing real-time advice on emerging regulatory issues pertaining to Booking.com and financial crime, with specific attention to economic sanctions, export controls, money laundering, tax evasion, and bribery/corruption. You will also work with the Senior Managing Counsel - Regulatory & Financial Crime to ensure that policies, procedures and other governance infrastructure are best-in-class, partnering with colleagues at Booking Holdings Inc. and Booking Holdings Financial Services.

The right candidate will have substantive legal and operational experience in a broad spectrum of regulatory financial crime matters, with primary focus on economic sanctions in the EU, UK and the US. You will have experience working with senior business leaders and responding to quickly developing regulatory changes (change management experience) in a fast-paced and diverse work environment.

Booking.com aspires to have and maintain standards and processes that guard against risks to our company and contribute to the overall health and integrity of our industry. This is a rare and exciting opportunity to contribute to a legal and risk management function in material ways. And, to do so in the context of the world’s favorite pastime - travel! The highly-skilled lawyers of the Booking.com Legal and Public Affairs (LPA) department advise the business and drive the company's objectives.

The role reports into the Senior Managing Counsel - Regulatory & Financial Crime with flexible/remote working arrangements to be determined with the successful candidate.

Key responsibilities:

• Provide day-to-day legal advice on financial crime related matters related to EU, UK and US regulations and other sanctions regimes, UK Bribery Act, FCPA, EU AML directives and other global equivalents
• Provide assistance and partner on a strategic level with the business to develop and maintain FinCrime (along with program team) related policies, procedures and processes to ensure compliance with applicable internal, legal and regulatory standards
• Work with external (Booking Holdings Inc. and Booking Holdings Financial Services) and internal stakeholders (Payments, FinTech, Internal Audit, Legal) to drive the FinCrime Risk Management Program
• Provide advisory support to the Compliance & Ethics team by evaluating, strategizing several aspects of the FinCrime Program
• Advise global business partners, company leadership, and key functions on corresponding financial crime risks and opportunities and provide financial crime input and oversight to strategic projects/initiatives and new products.
• Advise on financial crime related language in contracts etc.
• Knowledge-share with several teams across the business (Legal, Operations, Product)
• Ensure key stakeholders are kept apprised of relevant regulations and / or increased regulatory risk.

Skills and experience required:

• 5-8 years' attorney experience, preferably in both top law firm and in-house environments and including at least two years of experience as FinCrime counsel in corporate, government or law firm environment
• Experience in payments industry, specifically in FinTech landscape a plus
• Ability to provide practical, strategic and business-oriented legal advice
• Ability to build strong working relationships with internal stakeholders at all levels of management and work within cross-functional teams to develop solutions to complex legal/business issues
• Ability to effectively manage multiple time sensitive tasks
• Must be detail-oriented and demonstrate strong analytical and problem solving skills
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Strong organizational skills, quick learner with a strong work ethic and sense of initiative
• Ability to translate complex legal issues into clear and simple advice and to communicate effectively with non-legal internal colleagues across our company.

Further skills we are looking for:

• Aligning with Booking.com’s Values (Think Customer First, Succeed Together, Own It, Learn Forever, Do the Right Thing)
• Being curious, flexible, and a creative and pragmatic problem solver
• Confident yet collaborative
• Ability to influence stakeholders across all levels within the organisation
• Being proactive, resilient and having the drive to get things done
• Having sound judgement and the ability to see the big picture and simultaneously appreciate the details necessary to operationalise the strategy
• Having the courage to take positions and make tough judgment calls
• Being a team player, self aware and a good listener - a diverse group will always find the best solution!
• Ability to move with agility, prioritise workloads and meet deadlines
• Forward thinking with an interest in emerging issues in legal and policy

Booking.com ensures equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, colour, family or medical care leave, gender, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex, pregnancy and childbirth, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws and regulations. We aspire to have a workplace that reflects all of the diverse communities we serve and we welcome and encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply for roles on our team. We work to cultivate an inclusive culture in which all of our employees can be their authentic selves.

Why join the Legal & Public Affairs Team now?

Booking.com’s Legal & Public Affairs team is on a transformational journey at an exciting time for e-commerce and travel, with constant growth and innovation in how we operate. You will have the opportunity to actively shape the Department’s future. The Legal & Public Affairs team is a critical part of realising Booking.com’s strategy of the Connected Trip (a travel experience that includes not just accommodation, but also transportation, attractions, experiences, payments, flights etc).

This is a journey that requires close business and Legal & Public Affairs partnerships to redefine our business model, navigate complex regulatory environments, build new products, and negotiate increasingly elaborate commercial deals, among other important projects our teams work on every day. To tackle this mission, it all starts with a strong team passionate about growing Booking.com in an ethical and sustainable way!

Who we are:

To match our global footprint and the array of challenges we face, we are proud to highlight the diversity that exists across this group. We are a team of approximately 160 professionals - representing more than 35 nationalities - with lawyers qualified in many different countries, as well as non-lawyers with public policy, economics, compliance and risk backgrounds. Our team’s previous experience spans across a multitude of industries with team members having worked for major global companies (including Amazon, American Express, Google, Nokia and Yum! Brands), tech and other startups (e.g. AirBnB, Uber and WeWork), government entities (e.g., the Dutch Competition Authority), reputable international law firms (e.g., Hogan Lovells, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Baker Mckenzie), and Public Affairs firms (e.g., FTI Consulting, FIPRA and Brunswick).

In addition to our day-to-day work, we actively seek opportunities for our team members to engage in broader global legal and public affairs communities through speaking engagements, training programs, and association memberships. Some of our lawyers are Board members of Consumer Law associations, Competition Law associations, Privacy associations, etc. We believe in actively engaging with stakeholders to share our insights on policies affecting the travel experience and how travel tech innovations can fuel the digital transformation of the travel industry (e.g. we recently launched Booking.com’s Public Affairs blog, where we publish our position on key policy issues - A World Worth Experiencing).

As a team, we believe in:

• Integrating with the Business and Legal having a “seat at the table”: we are decision makers who can have a real impact on Booking.com’s future
• Booking.com’s mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. Travel helps people become more open minded and fuels curiosity
• Allowing members of our teams to experience different areas of the business or, if they want to be specialists, giving them the tools that will empower them to become more effective in their jobs
• Providing holistic legal and public affairs advice; our team should not work in silos
• Always looking for better ways of doing things, innovating and exchanging best practices
• Accepting that it's OK to make mistakes provided we learn from them
• Having a sense of humour and having fun working together; we are a team that likes to collaborate and share in joys and challenges together!