Microsoft Names Nowbar as Legal Chief, Palmer as General Counsel

Microsoft Corp. has reshuffled its legal leadership as the technology giant pushes forward with its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.

The company has promoted Hossein Nowbar to the expanded role of chief legal officer, while deputy general counsel and head of litigation Jonathan Palmer has moved up to general counsel, according to an internal memo from Microsoft vice chairman Bradford Smith.

Smith, a former Covington & Burling partner who has worked at Microsoft since 1993, continues to oversee the company’s corporate, external, and legal affairs departments globally. Cynthia “Cindy” Randall, an associate general counsel for litigation, has been elevated to deputy general counsel and head of litigation, a role in which she’ll report to Palmer, according to Smith’s memo. The appointments of Randall, Palmer, and Nowbar became effective this month.

A body in the European Union is seeking feedback on Microsoft’s effort to secure UK regulatory approval for its Activision Blizzard takeover. The European Commission, which approved the deal in May, circulated a series of questions to gaming firms to examine whether a UK proposal would be pro-competitive, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Smith’s memo said Nowbar’s new role will see him oversee Microsoft’s corporate, external, and legal affairs operations, its customer experiences and policy team, and an initiative designed to promote responsible practices involving the use of artificial intelligence.

Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI Inc., the parent company of artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, which has been integrated into some Microsoft products. Microsoft said this month that it would indemnify customers that purchase its artificial intelligence-related products from copyright lawsuits.

Nowbar, who joined Microsoft as a product lawyer in 1997, most recently held the roles of corporate secretary and general counsel for corporate legal affairs.

Palmer, a former partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe hired by Microsoft in 2010, will now assume responsibility for corporate legal affairs. Palmer’s spent the past three years running the company’s litigation team, which scored a major victory in July when Microsoft defeated an attempt by the US Federal Trade Commission to block its mega-merger with Activision Blizzard.

Beth Wilkinson, a lead litigator for Microsoft in that antitrust fight, has said publicly that she received a call from Palmer a day after the Redmond, Wash.-based company announced its bid for Activision Blizzard to start planning a strategy to successfully complete the deal.

Smith’s memo said he and Palmer have worked closely together on Activision Blizzard matters, and he credited the company’s new general counsel with spearheading Microsoft’s work on a series of surveillance and constitutional rights cases involving the US federal government.

Microsoft previously changed the structure of its law department in 2021 by tapping Nowbar to serve as its co-general counsel following the departure of Deborah “Dev” Stahlkopf, who left to take the top legal job at Cisco Systems Inc. Lisa Tanzi, a fellow former co-general counsel who eventually took on the title of chief legal officer, announced her retirement from Microsoft last week.

Microsoft’s law department has been fertile ground for legal talent, with the Walt Disney Co. recruiting ex-Microsoft general counsel Horacio Gutierrez last year to be its new top lawyer. Earlier this year, Microsoft’s former litigation and compliance chief David Howard joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius as a partner.

Erich Andersen, a former top intellectual property lawyer at Microsoft, also left the company in 2020 to take the top legal job at social media company TikTok Inc. Andersen subsequently brought on Matthew Penarczyk, a former Microsoft colleague, to serve as TikTok’s top US lawyer.