About

John Sisk & Son contains the UK and Ireland divisions of Sisk Group, a construction and property company that have worked on numerous high-profile and varied projects including Dublin’s state of the art Aviva Stadium. Kate Maton is group general counsel of John Sisk & Son, and oversees a legal support function that is integral to the way the company conducts its everyday business across its UK and Ireland operations. A whole raft of changes have occurred thanks to the legal team in the recent past, including internal audits and governance processes to facilitate better risk management and business performance, whilst the training offered by the team has been updated on areas of legislative compliance and has been introduced in areas such as anti-bribery and corruption. Maton encourages cross-functional collaboration between teams within the business, and such efforts have ‘enabled a better understanding of the contractual environment within both jurisdictions and the legal function has become more integrated with commercial and other functions of the company’ she states. Closely linked to the future success of the company, the team’s work requires them to communicate with key stakeholders, which includes an involvement in the setting of the commercial strategic direction, which Maton explains includes identifying ‘areas of focus’ and the ‘types of projects’ that will be targeted over the forthcoming years, displaying the importance of function’s work in the long term. With reference to specific legislative issues in the construction sector, The Construction Contracts Act was recently introduced in Ireland, which has presented the legal team with an important external challenge to navigate. Again proving their cross functional collaborative ability, the team worked closely with all Irish business units to change processes and documentation to ensure compliance with the Act, supplemented by training to ensure business partners understand how the Act operates and affects them.