Basler Kantonalbank (BKB) appointed Regula Berger as chief counsel and head of legal and compliance. The lawyer, 36, will also take a seat on the executive committee of the bank, the company said in a statement on Tuesday (in German).

Berger joins the Basel-based company from Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB), the largest of Switzerland’s cantonal state banks. At ZKB, Berger was in charge of a team of eleven lawyers and economists, managing the legal side of the bank’s trading floor. Berger was at ZKB for more than a decade.

Key U.S. Dossier

The new chief counsel will take up her responsibilities at BKB on October 1. She follows in the footsteps of Christian Schoeniger who chose to take early retirement after two decades serving the company. He was the key manager in charge of the tax dispute with the U.S. authorities.

BKB is one of the banks in the so-called Tier-1 category, against which the U.S. has opened criminal proceedings. The bank and the U.S. have yet to settle and Berger will likely be called upon to deal with this highly contentious business.