In the volatile and uncertain world of 2026, counsel can use methods such as ‘antifragility’ and ‘corporate diplomacy’ to steer their organisations through the challenges. In-House Perspective assesses what these terms mean for legal departments.

General counsel and their teams face a world beset by disruption and friction – from war in the Middle East and Ukraine to the impact of the climate crisis worldwide.

National governments are increasingly responding to this uncertainty and volatility, especially where they perceive that their national sovereignty is threatened.

The authors of a recent report by Lex Mundi – a group of independent law firms – argue that such threats are motivating governments to intervene more directly in markets and regulation. GCs that view risk through this lens can help steer their organisations through an unpredictable landscape, it says. The report – Embracing Geodisruption: General Counsel, Corporate Diplomacy and Antifragility – builds on insights from 60 senior in-house counsel and recommends antifragility and corporate diplomacy as methods GCs can use to find ‘the path ahead’.

The term ‘antifragility’ derives from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, in which the author describes the concept as the ability to gain from disruption, to become stronger under stress.

The Lex Mundi report identifies optionality – ‘a move away from prediction to building multiple alternative courses of action’ – as one area of antifragility that can be applied to legal risk management. Examples of optionality include developing parallel supply chains, including a termination clause in contracts or working with different commercial partners. Taking these actions allows a company to respond to geopolitical and regulatory changes more effectively.

Eric Staal, Vice-President, Global Markets at Lex Mundi, says that from a legal perspective, antifragility means thinking beyond protecting against what could go wrong and focusing instead on how the company can take advantage of volatility to become more competitive. For example, this could be achieved by overcapitalising the legal and compliance department so that the company is well-prepared for surprises. He says the report highlights areas of potential fragility in an organisation that a GC is well-placed to address – for example, if a company is too centralised, or has an opaque decision-making structure that suppresses undesirable information.

Rudolf Von Moreau, Vice-Chair of the IBA Corporate Governance and Activism Subcommittee, says that organisations are becoming stronger in response to the volatile risk environment because their ability to respond to a crisis is constantly being tested. His organisation – he’s General Counsel at Infineon Technologies in Munich – has adjusted many of its processes to allow it to respond faster when a crisis hits, he says.

Von Moreau adds that his company has cross-functional intervention teams that are formed to respond to a specific event. This initiative has brought different teams together, he says, and created a sense that the company can only ‘master’ the issues if they work together.

Bjarne Tellmann, CEO of FjordStream Advisors and a former GC at FTSE-listed companies, says the in-house team plays an important role by synthesising different priorities such as risk and regulation and tailoring its advice to the strategic objectives of the organisation, which an external provider can’t do. For him, this is where in-house legal adds the most value.

Meanwhile, the Lex Mundi report highlights areas where GCs already practise what it terms ‘corporate diplomacy’, for example through building relationships with governments and regulators to help shape policy outcomes. In addition, it argues GCs can take specific action in what it calls ‘evolving functions of corporate diplomacy’. These include creating ‘a global stakeholder matrix,’ mapping ‘critical issues and markets to identify vulnerabilities and build capacity’ and establishing and then engaging ‘with a regulatory intelligence network to monitor emerging issues’.

Staal says corporate diplomacy needs to be upgraded for the current climate. For him, the concept represents ‘the ability to understand your counterparty’s interest objectively – what that is and what drives it – as well as to represent your own interest’. He says corporate diplomacy offers GCs a tool to navigate what’s important to different stakeholders with increasingly diverse and sometimes political interests in a way that secures the long-term interests of the company.

One aspect of corporate diplomacy is understanding the legal nuances of a jurisdiction to ensure deals and other strategic priorities will succeed there. Staal says one option is to use a local boutique legal firm or PR specialist to help the in-house team understand how the law works in that region. Tellmann agrees that using local law firms is important. ‘Local firms on the ground have a much deeper set of roots into government, into society, into what’s happening,’ he says.

Von Moreau says he uses local law firms and plans to regionalise further. He’s also looking to hire foreign language speakers into his in-house team to make communication with local firms as effective as possible. For Moreau, corporate diplomacy is also an internal exercise of explaining the rules as they evolve to the board and the management team, so they understand the basis for the decisions they make.

The Lex Mundi report acknowledges a fundamental shift in the risk landscape. In 2026, risks can no longer be forecast and companies face multiple crises. In this climate, the report argues that existing risk management techniques are inadequate and antifragility offers a new way to prepare for the unthinkable. ‘Don’t try to anticipate or forecast what the crisis will be,’ says Staal, ‘just know that there will be one and know what your fragilities are.’