About

Working under the direction of general counsel Ulf Bathke, a fully bilingual Arabic-English lawyer who holds a PhD in Islamic law and is admitted to the bar of England and Wales, the newly created legal team at TAQA has enabled significant optimisation of TAQA’s legal operations. Many tasks can now be handled in-house, in closer collaboration with commercial functions and with resulting time and cost efficiencies.

Added value can also be extracted from external legal advice when procured and communicated through the legal team and management of legal risks is being integrated with overall risk management. In line with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s 2030 Vision, TAQA’s legal department puts emphasis on empowering talented Saudi Arabian female lawyers. In addition to the in-house professional development, a special training program for TAQA’s junior lawyers has developed in association with one of the leading international law firms in the Kingdom under which they are reverse-seconded to the firm’s Riyadh office.

At TAQA, trainees work under the supervision of a dedicated mentor and are provided with practical legal training to further enhance their skills. Bathke describes this process as follows: ‘TAQA wants to achieve that its junior lawyers get the best of both worlds in terms of legal training, honing their research and drafting skills in both Arabic and English in an expertise-intense environment of private practice while developing deep understanding of the interaction between legal and business issues and communication skills while dealing with the in-house clients’.

The team is also working on introduction of electronic software to classify internal data and safe-keep it depending on its sensitivity, create an internal database of legal documents accessible on company-wide basis, and to communicate with the board of directors in a modern manner while ensuring security of confidential information. Additionally, the team is working on a comprehensive overhaul of the company’s corporate governance framework, following on from the modernising changes in the Kingdom’s legislation and its Vision 2030 goals.

Ladislav Zahumensky, a Columbia Law School graduate and a New York qualified attorney, joined the team as senior legal counsel earlier this year. Ladislav relocated from Jeddah where he previously advised Emaar, The Economic City in connection with the King Abdullah Economic City mega-project and brought a mix of international private practice and local in-house experience and knowledge of M&A transactions to the team.

Additionally, two exceptionally gifted associates from among their junior team are Roba Alsunaidi and Hanan Ghulam. Overall, the function established only recently is fast evolving to keep pace with the requirements for a modern legal department. Through the same way the team aims at better understanding the business it supports, by proactively helping the business better understand legal. The team TAQA in-house team strives not only to be an internal legal expert for its in-house clients but to become a trusted advisor embedded in the company’s business in a cohesive, effective and collaborative way.