About

The EnergyAustralia legal and governance team led by general counsel and corporate secretary Chris Ryan comprises of 31 employees, of which 11 are practicing lawyers. It would not be an overstatement to suggest that the team has made an impact on how the company conducts in its business on almost every matter that it deals with. The team has taken a lead in pushing for risk-based decision making, recently gaining recognition for a sharp reduction in Ombudsman complaints. The department has also developed tools to enable its clients to identify matters that require early engagement with legal and has on many occasions been invited to contribute beyond pure professional advice. ‘For example, we’ve taken the lead in organising two-day leadership event for the top 50 leaders of EnergyAustralia and facilitating key leadership capabilities to improve and streamline decision making,’ Ryan clarifies. ‘There have also been two recent examples of our lawyers taking on commercial secondments or leadership opportunities within the business to manage key projects. These examples are practical demonstrations of the trust in and value placed on the team’s broader contribution to the business.’ Ryan’s team also impresses with its innovations, having recently worked alongside EnergyAustralia’s IT department to design an internal confidentiality agreement builder, allowing EnergyAustralia colleagues to quickly and simply create confidentiality agreements. According to Ryan since the system’s launch in September 2016, it has been used approximately 200 times, saving the team a significant amount of time in reviewing confidentiality agreements and enabling its clients to ‘progress commercial conversations more quickly’. ‘We’ve also made it easier to get them signed under our company approvals and delegation manuals,’ he adds. In addition to managing the business-as-usual requirements, the team has contributed risk-based support to hundreds of transformational initiatives delivering hundreds of millions of dollars in value, helping EnergyAustralia to deliver on its strategic objectives. On the transactional front, the team has worked on power purchase agreements for $1.5bn AUD investment program, has negotiated a points partnership agreement with Velocity Frequent Flyer and launch of the Velocity points offers for residential customers, participated in the acquisition of interest in Queensland-based company Redback Technologies, assisted with the decommissioning and rehabilitation project for the Wallerawang Power Station in New South Wales and worked on the development of a $100m AUD water treatment project.