How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

The pandemic crisis has caused a significant shift in the speed of business. Companies are making changes at an unprecedented pace. The role of the in-house counsel has become more significant than ever in helping the business navigate and respond to the challenges of such a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The sudden move to remote work changed our way of interacting within the team and with the internal clients. The pandemic emphasised the need to improve the regulatory function of the public bodies. We needed to quickly adapt to regulatory changes to have immediate access to the relevant key public stakeholders. The legal team took a pre-eminent role in guiding the internal clients on how to ensure proper implementation of the Covid-19 prevention measures adopted by the government, while preserving the business needs. The pandemic further strengthened my relationship with the local CEO and the board. As a general counsel, I played a key role in all strategic decision making to guarantee the business continuity during the pandemic. Whilst interacting with the most relevant public decision makers of the issues on the pandemic, we ensured the right workload, work-life balance, and wellbeing of our legal team. Our recruitment and talent retention strategy have been changed to meet the expectation of the new generation of lawyers.

What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

The pandemic crisis posed unprecedented challenges to my team as we had to handle multiple extra responsibilities on top of several strategic projects that we had already taken on. Our team demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to adapt to the new circumstances. The following transactions were handled by the team last year: (i) drafting Ministry of Transport guidelines on Covid-19 prevention measures; (ii) integrating TNT and FedEx legacy organisations and networks in the new FedEx structure, which required extensive corporate, labour, transport, regulatory and commercial law support; (iii) handling activities in the main hubs and warehouses by hiring several hundred of new employees who previously worked for our suppliers; (iv) preparing for the anticipated closure of numerous contracts which required complex labour and commercial negotiations; (v) transforming the network to adapt to the substantial growth of the e-commerce by implementing different initiatives that had to be assessed under the privacy, IT rules and consumer protection perspective.

The pandemic crisis substantially boosted the relationship between the legal team and the business partners. We supported key regulatory matters related to H&S legal framework while enhancing our business knowledge, and as a result, gained visibility as a key stakeholder within our organisation.