About

Henk Crouse, general counsel, leads the legal team at HSBC supervising three lawyers and an assistant handling the global banking colossus’ legal affairs across Africa. The team proactively steers the bank free of any reputational risks and covers a wide portfolio of products including advisory, corporate lending, markets and trade and cash management. The team includes associate general counsel Carolyn Smith, responsible for corporate lending, global trade markets and the investment banking side, and Paula Conway, senior legal counsel, responsible for credit and corporate lending, global trade and receivables, procurement, global liquidity and cash management, and global markets work. In the past two years, the legal team has worked on creating new and strong confidentiality systems for storage of electronic data for the bank’s clients and staff. It has also managed the considerable financial regulation legislation in the last few years including POPI, FICA Amendments Act, Financial Services Reform Act, Financial Services Act Regulations, MiFID II, Market Abuse Regulation, CRS, and UK Ring-fencing legislation. Some of the team’s major successes include the opening of a representative office, a US$600m revolving facility agreement for a local mining company; a US$300m term loan for a local bank; refinancing of a US$75m loan to a local financial institution; a ZAR4.5bn revolving borrowing base finance facility; and a US$700m dual currency term loan facility. Crouse identifies the team’s ethos as, ‘to be seen as being an integral part of the business while still managing the legal risks. This is done by providing expert and professional legal advice, marketing the legal team throughout the organisation by walking the floors and building trusted relationships with key stakeholders’.