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

Across the globe, Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited and its group companies (“Gulf”), are recognized as a leading energy company in Thailand. Over the past years, our team has been participating deeply in a variety of major transactions in the energy, infrastructure and telecommunication sectors, including both domestic and cross-border deals. We possess extensive experiences in various areas such as energy concessions, M&A, public-private partnerships, project/corporate financing, dispute resolution, capital market transactions, and so on. Despite Gulf playing an important role in the Thai energy industry, we expect greater opportunities to expand our business into international markets. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we decided to make our biggest move into the Europe energy market. In September 2020, Gulf successfully acquired the 50% equity interest in the German offshore windfarm Borkum Riffgrund 2, of installed capacity of 464.8 megawatts, valued at approximately €550m. This transaction is one of our most notable transactions, because Gulf was marked as the first Thai energy player pioneering an investment in a global (European) energy market and forming a strategic partnership with an international market leader in offshore windfarms. As head of the in-house legal team, my team and I contributed greatly and intensively throughout the transaction and, notably, the whole transaction was done online. Addressing the commercial objectives of the company while maintaining the mark-ups was very challenging when it came to contract negotiation. Even the bidding process was very competitive, and taken during the hardships of the pandemic. We believe that excellent teamwork and a strong commercial strategy with a deep understanding of business were key factors that led us to success.

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

Beside the successful acquisition of Borkum Riffgrund 2 Offshore Wind Farm project during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have achieved a remarkable step whereby Gulf successfully invested a 42% equity interest in Intouch Holding and its group companies – Advance Info Service and Thaicom Public, a notable telecommunication group company in Thailand.

This marks a magnificent milestone in the energy and telecommunication industries in Thailand. It gave evidence that there was no boundary or limitation for our legal team to achieve Gulf’s strategic objective, even during the hardships of the pandemic.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

I consider advanced proficiency in coding and programming to be the skills that a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry. It is a great value-add to our own legal field as it helpfully enhances our existing legal knowledge. Applying and updating such skills in accordance with the latest technological developments will innovate ordinary work and improve business processes in our area of expertise. For example, designing a document automation system to generate several thousand electronic agreements will minimize manual tasks and reduce the day-to-day workload, while also increasing efficiency and accuracy in creating contractual agreements. Considering our coding and programming skills together with our legal knowledge, we can learn how to find the perfect balance between creative and analytical excellence, to deal with problems in a methodical way, to approach difficulties more effectively, both in legal and tech-related situations, and to develop our critical and logical thinking that is necessary for managerial roles.