About

The Unilever Ghana-Nigeria cluster legal department operates a business partnering model comprising of six lawyers and one non-lawyer embedded within different business divisions under the supervision of Abidemi Ademola, the general counsel and company secretary who leads the legal team in handling various complex legal transactions in Nigeria and Ghana. Prior to 2017 the legal teams in Ghana and Nigeria were distinct and separate; however, following a Africa-wide restructure in 2017, Unilever’s Ghanaian and Nigerian operations were consolidated into a single cluster. The legal teams in Ghana and Nigeria were successfully integrated and became the Ghana-Nigeria legal team with effect from January 2017. The integration led to a number of positives such as the exchange of best practices, expansion in the scope of the lawyers’ knowledge and skills and positive cross-country legal initiatives and synergies. The legal department has since become the business unit’s go-to division, providing tailored legal advice to enable informed business decisions. ‘The lawyer is also the legal eyes and conscience for that unit, looking out for legal risks, advising and acting to mitigate risks’, explains Ademola. Furthermore, in 2016 the legal team revamped the Unilever Ghana-Nigeria contracting process by introducing an integrated contract management policy, detailing and streamlining the end-to-end contract management process. As a further improvement, in 2017 the team implemented a technology based contracting model, which involves outsourcing the drafting of routine contracts to a third-party legal service provider. With this contracting model, the business manager is solely in charge of end-to-end contract documentation of specified routine contracts, ensuring that lawyers have more time for other high level work, ensuring that the process is simplified and efficient as well as encouraging better contract compliance and obligation management. The legal team has also been central to a number of key transactions. For instance, in December 2017 the Unilever Group received a binding offer from KKR to purchase Unilever’s global baking, cooking and spreads business for over €6.8bn on a cash-free and debt-free basis. As members of the Group, Unilever Ghana and Unilever Nigeria were required to separately sell their spreads business (Blue Band margarine) to KKR locally, as part of the global deal. During this move, the legal department drafted the local contract documentation with KKR, managed critical internal and external stakeholders – directors, shareholders and regulators – and provided legal direction and advice on the exit of certain employees to join KKR, as well the management of existing Unilever customers. The team impressed a number of private practice peers for their efforts in this regard to this major deal.