Senior Legal Counsel, Regulatory (APAC)
Farfetch
Legal, Compliance / Regulatory
Porto, Portugal
Posted on Nov 19, 2025
Farfetch is a leading global marketplace for the luxury fashion industry, connecting customers in over 190 countries with items from more than 50 countries and over 1,400 of the world’s best brands and charming boutiques from around the world. Farfetch opens a world of luxury for endless expressions of style, delivering a truly unique shopping experience and access to the most extensive selection of luxury on a global marketplace.
LEGAL
The Legal team is a strategic business area ensuring we navigate the complexities of a global business and acting as guardians of our legal integrity, providing expert advice to protect our interests, manage risks, and ensure compliance.
PORTO
Our office is near Porto, in the north of Portugal, and is located in a vibrant business hub. It offers a dynamic and welcoming environment where our employees can connect and network with a large community of tech professionals.
THE ROLE
The Legal Team at Farfetch is seeking a Senior Legal Counsel, Regulatory (APAC) for a broad regulatory role with a focus on the APAC region. This is a unique opportunity to lead on matters in APAC (Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Taiwan, Mainland China, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand) within a global, fast moving and innovative business. You will enjoy a broad and diverse role, delivering high quality strategic legal advice across multiple operational territories in conjunction with our wider international Legal Team.
Acting as a true business partner, this role requires someone who is commercially minded, intellectually curious and hands on, able to quickly understand and apply new sets of international laws and regulations - identifying and mitigating risks, as well as seizing opportunities. It is a role for someone with strong professional ethics and the energy, interest and experience to pursue a broad array of regulatory matters.
WHAT YOU’LL DO
- Provide proactive, strategic and pragmatic advice on areas of managing legal risks in the external business or regulatory environment
- Advise on the local regulatory framework, including payments, digital regulation, consumer protection and competition law in APAC
- Tracking and assessing existing and new requirements for the Farfetch Group, as well as advising on their implementation
- Identifying, monitoring and evaluating relevant regulatory risks and enforcement trends, and taking proactive steps to mitigate these
- Developing strategies for, and engaging with, relevant regulators in APAC
- Oversee payments related matters in APAC, including reviewing the contracts and cooperation with payment processors and ensuring a compliant payment model for the regions responsible
- Work with the delivery team on tariffs matters and advising from legal perspective
- Negotiate, draft and review a broad range of commercial contracts, policies, guidance, corporate documentation and other legal documentation as required by the APAC business and entities, in collaboration with the broader Legal Team
- Building compliance processes, tools, policies and training to educate relevant parts of the Farfetch Group
- Liaise with external law firms, primarily in APAC, where external local support is needed
- Supervising and supporting legal counsel(s), in particular a local Legal Counsel based in and focused on mainland China, in their daily work, namely, BAU contracts review, legal advice giving, co-sec handling to work efficient and smart
- Supporting the Head of Legal, Regulatory and Group Legal VP on legal matters, and especially in ensuring compliance
WHO YOU ARE
- Be a qualified lawyer with at least 6 years’ PQE, and superior analytical skills and creative problem solving skills. Prior in-house experience would be beneficial
- Have excellent training, preferably in a top tier law firm
- Have experience advising on digital regulation and/or payments
- Have proven ability to assess new pieces of international legislation / regulation and apply them on a risk-based basis to a business
- Have the curiosity and ability to absorb a lot of information quickly, apply it in assessments, and drive implementation
- Be able to understand nuances and complexities, and translate these into commercial, pragmatic, and concise advice in the context of a global business
- Have a strong work ethic and attention to detail, be highly proactive, organized and efficient, able to work on fast moving projects
- Be able to work autonomously but also well in teams, supervising legal counsel and supporting the VP of Legal and Head of Legal (Regulatory)
- Possess excellent communication, organization and drafting skills
- Be driven, forward-thinking, robust, innovative and agile, with commercial acumen
- Fluency in English is a must, ability to speak Mandarin Chinese is appreciated but not necessary.
REWARDS & BENEFITS
- Health insurance for the whole family, flexible working environment and well-being support and tools
- Extra days off, sabbatical program and days for you to give back for the community
- Training opportunities and free access to Udemy
- Flexible benefits program
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES STATEMENT
- FARFETCH is committed to being an inclusive workplace where diversity in all its forms is celebrated. We make employment decisions without regard to race, religious creed, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, ancestry, marital status, medical condition as defined by state law, physical or mental disability, military service or veteran status, pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions, genetic information or any other classification protected by applicable federal, state or local laws or ordinances. If you require special accommodation, please let us know.
SCAM DISCLAIMER
- It has come to our attention that there may be fraudulent activities involving individuals or organizations falsely claiming to represent Farfetch in order to attract candidates to a SCAM. Please be aware that Farfetch does not conduct recruitment processes through messaging apps or any unofficial communication channels, other than our official careers website. Additionally, Farfetch will never ask candidates for any form of payment during the recruitment process.
This is a broad, visible and exciting role in a dynamic team. This role will be ideal for someone with past experience in both private practice and in-house, especially in an e-commerce environment or retail.