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

The company has grown significantly since its inception in 2010. More recently, the company has completed some of its largest acquisitions in the past three years, completing over 52 acquisitions since being established. During the past three years, several of our acquisitions have been of an international nature. These global acquisitions call for localised legal expertise from our legal team to support every international operation. Our integration of acquisitions includes the implementation and maintenance of our culture regarding risk management. Throughout the last two years, the legal team has resolved significant complex matters resulting in little to no impact to the company’s bottom line.

Did the pandemic lead to a lasting increase in the interaction your legal team has with the strategic plans of the company?

Our legal team has had very excellent interaction prior to the pandemic, and as a display of our company’s abilities and team effort, the pandemic did not detract from our group, as the challenges it raised were successfully dealt with.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

Choosing the right external lawyers is very important to us. External lawyers need to understand our strategy and what is important for us to achieve our goals. It is important to develop a bond of trust and positive communication, as we become more and more demanding when selecting external counsel to support us.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

In-house lawyers need to be strategic business lawyers, focused at understanding the business and its procedures the best they can. Business lawyers must understand what the company does, as well as its short- and long-term objectives, its strategy for growth, and identify how to provide value added solutions. When a business partner realises that the legal team are there to support the operations and provide effective solutions to assist the well-functioning of the company, to achieve their objectives, that is how trust is built. Continued positive outcomes between the legal team and operations compound the reinforcement in building a strong and trusting professional working relationship.