Team size: Four

Key team members: Birgitte Poulsen, Mette Ørtoft

Major legal advisers: Bech-Bruun, Moalem Weitemeyer

Can you give an idea of the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

At RelyOn Nutec, I am responsible for ensuring legal compliance and limit risk exposure of the RelyOn Nutec Group. We are also responsible for HSEQ and sustainability, manage and implement complex transactions, agreements, and projects – including acquisitions and complex compliance projects – by advising on and mitigating legal and commercial risks.

As an international company present in more than 20 countries, we are continuously monitoring the political, economic, or regulatory changes across all the countries. The complexity brought by being present internationally means that we are affected by changes in all countries where we are present. Hence, we put significant effort in monitoring and assessing all changes.

I was recently involved in three key acquisitions; the acquisition of Australia based Thomson Bridge; US-based Cavu International, and UK-based Complete Training Solutions. These acquisitions crucial to further strengthening RelyOn Nutec’s position in digital services and renewable energy training services.

We recently successfully placed a senior secured sustainability-linked bond to be listed on the Oslo and Frankfurt stock exchanges. The transaction received strong interest from investors across the Nordics, continental Europe, and the US, with participation in the placement from both existing and new investors, resulting in an oversubscribed book and upsizing the bond issue .

The acquisitions and the bond issue will allow us to continue to support the energy transition and to fulfil the group strategy.

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

My team is responsible for sustainability efforts across the group. We have since 2019 continuously identified, prevented, and mitigated our risks of adverse impacts on the core principles for sustainability.

For RelyOn Nutec, safety is not only our business – it is in our DNA. Helping our customers to ensure a healthy and safe work environment is our purpose, and we take pride in ensuring that our delegates have the right skill set to stay safe in hazardous and potentially life-threatening situations. Additionally, we are committed to reducing the environmental footprint of our operations through efficient use of resources and continuous focus on reducing our energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

With the increasing consciousness of climate change, our efforts are increasingly important for the entire organisation and for our stakeholders, and requires that we ensure we are adequately equipped to deliver on the increasing reporting requirements.

How do you suggest in-house departments build strong relationships with business partners?

To provide the best legal advice, support and add value the business, it is key to understand the business strategy, operations, and any key issues and ‘must-win-battles’. An especially important skill of the modern in-house lawyer is to possess business acumen and a commercial mind-set.

The best result is achieved by combining the substantial and broad legal expertise with a sound business understanding, and by thinking outside the legal area and closely collaborating with other key stakeholders. Further, it is key that the approach is solution oriented. In my experience, it is easier to find solutions if you are involved early in projects or cases.

In the future, it will be even more important to be able to provide advice on broader commercial aspects, to be a true business partner fully involved in the decisions and direction of the business.