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

The Velesto Group is a multinational service provider based in Malaysia for the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. As the group owns and operates six premium jackup drilling rigs in Southeast Asia, provides workover services through its group of hydraulic workover units and provides integrated drilling and workover services to our clients, the Velesto legal team engages in a wide spectrum of legal services covering revenue generation contracts, non-revenue generation contracts, corporate services, projects, advisory and dispute management.

With the robust recovery of the oil and gas sector and the resumption of active industrial and commercial activities, the legal team was at the forefront of delivering long-term contracts for the group and as documentation experts drove the successful conclusion of the renegotiation of higher daily charter rates for the group’s jackup rigs with its major clients.

As an industry leader in the Integrated Rig Drilling and Completion (i-RDC) approach, which is a new approach where drilling rig services, equipment and material procurement are integrated and provided by a single service provider, Velesto’s US$135m HESS i-RDC service contract is Malaysia’s first jackup drilling contract awarded through the i-RDC arrangement. This new approach requires a new way to create an integrated contract that brings together the various contract requirements of various i-RDC partners for a collaborative approach to drive campaigns.

The key advisors who were involved in drafting the contracts that require insight into the technical, contractual and commercial spectrum from a legal perspective are innovators who create terms, close different positions and successfully witnessed the execution of the inaugural I-RDC contract for the group.

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

We have focused on leveraging digitalisation here at the company. One of the innovations we came up with is switching from manual Contract Variance Forms (“CVF”) to an e-CVF. This e-form captures the type of contract, distributes it to the approving authority, provides a summary of the proposed contract, indicates if there are any exceptions before the final approval, and for execution of the contract is captured for documentation.

We have also implemented contract registration with automatic advance contract expiration notification – this system houses the group’s active and inactive contracts and provides automatic expiration alerts on active contracts to owners with six-month, three-month and one-month countdowns for the contract owner’s actions to either renew or expire the contract.

Finally, we have commenced a contract standardisation system that houses all the group’s standard contracts in a digital format. Each standard contract has ‘on’ and ‘off’ indicators to apply and cancel terms to the contract type. Part of the contract can be edited, and other parts of the contract are locked in creating more control over the terms of the contract for the group.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most? Which have you found most useful in your legal team?

Internal counsel should be able to deliver timely, accurate, insightful, practical solutions in all areas of business concern. They should possess the ability to take on complex tasks, grey areas and high volumes of work. To be a super legal enabler to the company, the mastery of technological tools available in the corporate market is needed to meet the efficiency demanded by the business. I believe there are several legal tools that will impact the future of in-house teams and many that we have found useful in our operations including research tools, that allow teams to easily access laws and regulations, academic writings and case law summaries. Precedents, such as base templates of a variety of contract types that could be used to tailor bespoke contracts. Legal trackers to track requests made by internal clients and self-service tools that empower clients without the legal team’s involvement. We have also implemented educational legal videos to educate other areas of the organisation and digital record-keeping.