Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to the third largest e-commerce company in the world. Booking.com is the largest business within Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) and accounts for the vast majority of Booking Holdings’ total revenue. Booking Holdings is a leading Fortune 500 e-commerce conglomerate with a market cap of approximately $80 billion.

With a mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. Booking.com connects travellers with the world’s largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts and even tree houses. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in over 40 languages, offer more than +28 million total reported listings, and cover +140K destinations in +200 countries worldwide.

Booking.com is currently looking for a world-class Sr. Legal Counsel - Consumer & Competition to help grow and defend Booking.com by providing global legal advice on predominantly Consumer Law related matters - with Competition Law being the secondary focus. The successful candidate will have a tangible impact on internal and external stakeholders and be involved in several litigation procedures.

The Sr. Legal Counsel - Consumer & Competition will be a member of the Competition and Consumer law team that assesses risks in a complex regulatory environment, ensures compliance and protects the company from any legal challenge related to Consumer (and Competition) law.

As the Sr. Legal Counsel - Consumer & Competition you are responsible for:

• Bringing both legal advice and strategy focusing on Consumer and Competition law
• Advising the business independently on Consumer and Competition law related matters
• Monitoring and strategically advising on current ongoing litigation procedures in several different countries
• Work closely to ensure that the team is aligned with the different on-going cases as well as working with external law firms
• Look to improve day to day activities to increase quality of processes and/or products from the team
• Create legal awareness through training programs and knowledge sharing: specifically the awareness of the Competition and Consumer law Compliance Program
• Proactively keep up with new legislation and market developments and ensure Booking.com’s compliance

The ideal Sr. Legal Counsel - Consumer & Competition will have:

• 5+ years’ experience as a Legal Counsel focussing on Consumer Law
• Experience with giving legal advice to/within a global, international business
• Familiarity with litigation procedures in the European Union and outside of the European Union
• Hands-on experience in engaging with regulators (i.e. Competition and Consumer authorities)
• The ability and confidence to influence senior stakeholders across the business
• The ability to easily adapt to change as well as resolving complex legal issues with efficiency and pragmatism
• The ability to work to tight deadlines and prioritise on deadlines set by external parties
• The confidence to work independently in combination with a true team-player mentality
• A helicopter point of view and the ability to connect the dots
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, additional languages are highly appreciated

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 a transformational time for e-commerce and travel (think: growth, innovation, changes to how we operate); you will have an opportunity to actively shape the Department’s future. The Legal & Public Affairs team is also a critical part of the enablement of 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 get involved 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 70 professionals - representing more than 20 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 Uber, American Express, Airbnb, Amazon, Google, Nokia), tech and other startups, government entities (e.g., the Dutch Competition Authority), and reputable international law firms (e.g., Hogan Lovells, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Baker Mckenzie), and Public Affairs firms (e.g., FTI Consulting, FIPRA, Brunswick).

In addition to our day-to-day work, we actively seek opportunities for our team members to engage in the wider 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 also 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. For example, 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 that can have a real impact on Booking.com’s future
• Booking’s mission of making it easier for everyone to experience the world. Travel helps people become more open minded, curious and flexible
• Allowing members of our teams to experience different areas or, if they want to be specialists, give them the tools 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, improving our Legal Operations function, innovating and exchanging best practices
• Accepting that it's OK to make mistakes as long as 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!