How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

Our legal team acts as a coach rather than a judge, guiding the Company with game rules. We invest in our people, technology, and processes to provide quality and timely legal services, especially in times of instability or crises. To ensure our legal strategies are aligned with the business strategy, we undertake several key actions.

We proactively monitor the legal landscape to anticipate and mitigate potential risks that could impact the Company’s operations, reputation, or financial performance. By working closely with business and function teams, our legal team develops and implements risk mitigation strategies. These may include enhancing compliance policies and guidelines, updating contract templates, or resolving disputes at an early stage to avoid the need for legal proceedings.

In addition, we ensure that our legal team remains responsive and accessible to the business and function teams, particularly during times of urgency or uncertainty. Through our 24/7 online service platform, LawYou, we provide tailored legal advice and assistance on day-to-day legal issues. This platform also allows us to track and analyse legal requests, enabling the efficient prioritisation and allocation of resources.

Promoting a culture of legal awareness and education is another key focus. We believe that legal training and education empower employees and enhance their legal capabilities. To this end, we assess the Company’s legal training needs and offer regular, customised training sessions on topics such as competition law, data privacy, construction safety, trademark strategy, and insider information. Additionally, we use LawYou to share insights and lessons learned, further promoting awareness of legal risks and best practices.

Finally, we strive to optimise legal spending and deliver value to the Company by selecting external lawyers based on their expertise and the specific needs of each case or project. We negotiate discounted hourly rates and reduce reliance on external lawyers for minor issues to ensure cost-effectiveness.

What emerging technologies do you see as having the most significant impact on the legal profession in the near future, and how do you stay updated on these developments?

One emerging technology poised to significantly impact the legal profession in the near future is artificial intelligence (AI). AI can enhance the efficiency and quality of legal services by automating routine tasks, finding relevant information, and generating insights from data. For example, we use AI to help us draft simple documents, translate documents, preliminarily review contracts, prepare presentations, and identify risks and opportunities.

To stay abreast of these developments, we work closely with our IT Strategy and Digital Operations Department and external partners to explore new solutions and exchange ideas. Moreover, our IT Strategy and Digital Operations (Department) regularly organise training sessions and workshops for our staff, especially for Departmental Digital Squads who will be the primary person in charge of the respective department’s digitisation initiatives, to enhance their digital literacy and skills. We believe that by embracing AI and other technologies, we can provide more value-added and strategic legal advice to our business units and stakeholders.