Head of Team: Darren Isaacson, group head of legal

Team size: Four

What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Mercury has had a busy year expanding its client base and expanding the jurisdictions it does business in. The construction and fit-out of data centres continue to be a significant source of revenue for Mercury, and as the capacity of these buildings increases, so does the value of the contracts we negotiate. While we are lucky enough to have existing agreement frameworks for many of our clients, there is still significant work involved when it comes to reviewing contracts. This work is generated by new clients and by existing clients who move to new jurisdictions, the latter of which necessitates a look at documents through the lenses of new local laws and customs while we try to meet our risk profile. Moving to new jurisdictions on significant projects comes with its own unique challenges, not the least of which is the preparation of our internal templates to accord with local law. We are lucky that our legal team has working knowledge of French, German and Spanish law and language (the latter being of great assistance in intuitively understanding other civil law jurisdictions).

What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The biggest challenge to our team involved the turnover of staff. We had one lawyer take an opportunity to move back into practice at the end of 2022 and a paralegal who left for an internal commercial role within Mercury. Losing 40% of our team was always going to have an impact! Luckily, we were able to fill the holes in our team quickly. Nevertheless, training up two new people on the processes, personnel and risk appetite of the company, while keeping the show on the road at a busy time, required a monumental effort from the whole team. The relative smoothness of the transition is a testament to the foresight and agility of the team.

Has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities, and if so how?

Mercury has been very conscious of its contributions to the global effort to fight climate change and build a sustainable environment. The impetus for change is both internal and client-driven, informing what we build and how we build it. In addition, we’ve invested in learning how to measure ourselves from a sustainability perspective so that we have an objective method of accounting for our impact and future reductions. Legally, we’ve had to review contracts and clauses to ensure our supply chain is bound by our and our clients’ sustainability standards. We are also managing a campaign to raise awareness about issues of modern slavery in particular.