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

When Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) announced its intention to provide US$1bn of financing to companies helping to tackle the pandemic, the team rapidly developed a suite of legal documents to support loans, import/export finance transactions and working capital facilities that formed part of the Covid-19 programme. The documents needed to be flexible enough for use in the 59 countries and territories that form part of SCB’s footprint across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Americas. Further, the documents needed to allow for the inclusion of specific conditions and be available at no cost to SCB’s clients accessing the not-for-profit programme.

Examples of the significant impact of the Covid-19 programme include the production of personal protective equipment in Vietnam, the funding of Covid-19 tests in Indonesia, and the provision of US$200m of not-for-profit funding towards Afreximbank’s structured framework to help finance the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines, that directly impacted vaccination in 55 African countries.

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities?

SCB is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, achieving a just transition and being a force for good where it matters most. The legal team recognises its vital role delivering these commitments by bringing together lawyers to provide focussed sustainability support as a component of their broader role. Collectively, this group provides extensive legal counsel and support across a range of issues relating to sustainable finance, sustainability strategy and reporting, training and education, and industry thought leadership. It is critical to note that the SCB legal support model for sustainability has been established and grown with no additional headcount by embedding the sustainability agenda into their day-to-day activities.

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

The skills required to fit within a modern in-house legal team are now much broader and go beyond just having deep technical expertise. Our learning and skills programme is designed to look at the future skills for the modern in-house lawyer. We focus on four key pillars, each with an innovative approach to learning. The first pillar is based on understanding the bank’s strategy and our role in driving the strategy as legal advisors. The second is our technical pillar, which focuses on SCB’s sustainability and digital agenda with a series of online courses designed to ensure that everyone has a core understanding of these strategic priorities. The third pillar looks at the core capabilities our lawyers need to provide commercial and business partnering skills in addition to their technical expertise. Our fourth leadership pillar focuses on inclusive internal leadership, where we have sought to ignite inclusion by creating a sense of belonging, and how to use their privilege to help others and lead inclusively in a hybrid working environment.