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Dentons shares General Counsel insights on Global supply chain disruption

Dentons report examines General Counsel priorities as geopolitical disruption reshapes supply chain legal risk, contracts and resilience.

The operational disruption documented throughout this report is creating legal, contractual, compliance and governance issues across supply chains, infrastructure projects, logistics agreements and cross-border commercial arrangements.

For General Counsel and in-house legal teams, a key priority is ensuring that business decisions are informed by a clear understanding of legal exposure, contractual options, regulatory requirements and governance obligations.

Across sectors, a consistent set of legal priorities is emerging: supply chain risk visibility, contract resilience, sanctions and regulatory compliance, counterparty performance, dispute readiness, liquidity-related legal exposure and Board-level reporting.

1. Legal visibility across supply chain risk

Supply chain risk tends to crystallise where operational disruption intersects with contractual obligations, regulatory constraints, supplier distress or logistics capacity. Legal teams may therefore need to maintain visibility across critical suppliers, logistics routes, infrastructure, counterparties, sanctions exposure and regulatory developments.

General Counsel should consider prioritising:

• identifying business-critical suppliers, logistics routes and infrastructure dependencies;
• mapping exposure beyond immediate contractual counterparties;
• understanding where sanctions, export controls or regulatory restrictions may affect performance;
• tracking supplier or customer distress that could affect delivery, payment or continuity;
• ensuring legal has timely access to operational data relevant to contractual rights and obligations.

2. Contract review through a legal and commercial-risk lens

Periods of disruption can expose the limits of contractual protections. Provisions that appear robust on paper may offer limited relief depending on drafting, governing law, factual circumstances, procedural requirements and available alternatives.

Legal teams should consider reviewing:

• force majeure, hardship, MAC*, termination and suspension rights;
• notice requirements, time limits and evidence thresholds;
• pricing adjustment, freight surcharge and cost pass-through mechanisms;
• substitution rights and alternative sourcing obligations;
• sanctions, export control and restricted-party provisions;
• counterparty stress indicators that may affect performance, payment or enforcement risk.

Legal’s role is to maintain available options, clarify risk and ensure that decision-makers understand the legal consequences of each available course of action.

3. Governance and internal alignment

An effective legal response requires coordination between legal, finance, operations, compliance and commercial teams. Legal can help ensure decisions are properly informed, documented and aligned with the organisation’s risk appetite.

This is particularly important where disruption creates competing considerations, including preserving legal rights while maintaining continuity, enforcing delivery obligations while managing counterparty distress, responding to pricing or freight increases, and weighing contractual rights alongside regulatory, reputational and operational considerations.

General Counsel should establish clear governance for escalation routes, decision-makers, negotiation parameters, approval thresholds and documentation of the rationale for key decisions.

4. Sanctions, regulatory and financial-risk oversight

Regulatory divergence remains a key issue. Current market conditions may affect shipping, insurance, trade finance, beneficial ownership, sanctions screening, export controls and counterparty due diligence.

General Counsel should consider whether the business has appropriate controls for:

• ongoing sanctions and export control monitoring;
• counterparty and beneficial ownership screening;
• transaction monitoring and escalation;
• higher-risk shipping, insurance and logistics arrangements;
• procurement irregularities, fraud or misconduct arising under operational pressure;
• documented escalation procedures where regulatory uncertainty exists.

Financial and liquidity issues may also create legal risk. Delayed payments, claims recovery, covenant pressure, refinancing decisions and loss mitigation may each have contractual, governance or disclosure implications.

5. Longer timelines and multiple legal pathways

Disruption can take longer to resolve than expected. Timelines may extend across regulatory processes, commercial negotiations, disputes, insurance claims, logistics recovery and supply chain reconfiguration. Legal teams may help maintain available options, identify legal trigger points and ensure decision-makers understand procedural and evidential requirements.

Areas for definition may include:

• notice and claims timelines;
• dispute escalation thresholds;
• counterparty engagement points;
• payment and delivery milestones;
• renewal, suspension and termination dates;
• regulatory approval or reporting triggers;
• Board-level reporting cadence.

6. Legal support and operational resilience

Operational resilience is not solely a legal issue, but legal teams have an important role in ensuring that crisis response, business continuity, contract management and claims tracking processes are active, coordinated and appropriately documented.

Across the sectors covered in this report, recurring legal and governance themes include:

• concentration risk across critical suppliers, logistics routes and inputs;
• contractual exposure arising from delay, non-performance, pricing pressure and substitution;
• sanctions, export control and regulatory divergence;
• evidence preservation for claims, notices and disputes;
• governance of alternative sourcing, counterparty engagement and operational changes.

Source: Dentons