Team Size: 25

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

The legal team has recently been involved in several agreements, including EPC Agreements, Joint R&D Agreements, and collaboration agreements for decarbonisation projects, such as Hydrogen, Ammonia, e-fuel, SAF, and Methanation. Our legal team has also been involved in the life science sectors, for example with plant and pharmaceutical factories.

Could you share an example of a time when your team came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

We internally delivered manuals, guidelines, and checklists for the handling of various types of contracts, for example, NDAs, service agreements, joint R&D agreements, JV Agreements and EPC Agreements. This enables internal departments to complete contract reviews on their own, identify areas of risk, and formulate certain countermeasures before requesting the legal department to review agreements.

Based on this, the legal team has developed and internally issued the legal department review rules. These rules establish certain thresholds under which the department responsible for the contract in question can review it without the legal department’s discretion. The purpose of this rule is to ensure that the legal team has time to focus on contracts in areas that are new to the company, such as decarbonisation as well as the life sciences sector.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values?

It is very important that we choose external lawyers who align with our values. This is because the lawyers can truly work as ‘one team’ if they can go beyond the business-like client-lawyer relationship and get them to belief in the values of their client company.

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

The legal director and the senior partner of the law firm should develop a close relationship. It is important to regularly exchange views and updates, including each other’s short, mid, and long-term vision. It is important to select the right law firm to work with based on a proper understanding of each firm’s strengths, weaknesses and latest areas of focus. It is important that in-house counsel provides appropriate feedback on the status of what has happened since the advice was given.