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

The Astro legal team has played a key role in facilitating strategically important new deals with content and technology partners, as Astro has continued its transformation journey, launching innovative new products and services to reflect the shifts in its customers’ TV viewing habits and preferences.

Astro’s aim is to be a super-aggregator of the streaming services of third-party content creators and studios, bringing them together on Astro’s platform and giving customers choice and value. Recent deals closed by our legal team include the launch of apps from Zee5, WeTV, Viu and BBC Player, joining the likes of Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar and HBO GO on the platform.

The Astro legal team has also supported the launch of Astro Fibre, a standalone fibre broadband service, by concluding an agreement with Telekom Malaysia for access to its high-speed network, thereby transitioning Astro towards becoming a full internet service provider and creating a one-stop home entertainment and internet solution for its customers.

The Astro legal team has also taken the lead in combating piracy and the ever-evolving threat of illegal streaming, which damages the entire content creation industry and remains one of the most significant challenges for the company. Working closely with the English Premier League, the Astro Legal Team brought a case which set a crucial precedent with a landmark ruling from the High Court of Malaya, determining that a local commercial premises had acted illegally by showing pirate broadcasts of sports and entertainment content.

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?

The Astro legal team has been on a digital transformation journey over the last twelve months, embracing legal tech to digitize our operations and create more efficient, streamlined workflows. The result is the launch of a new legal portal, accessible to all our colleagues in the company as the one-stop destination for legal requests. With a bespoke build to reflect specific business needs and practises, and leveraging existing technology to keep costs low, the portal includes innovative ideas such as an online negotiation centre to optimize turnaround times and reduce lawyers’ workloads. As a result of this project, the team was shortlisted for the most innovative digital in-house legal department at the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Awards APAC and recognised with a commendation.

How do you see the general counsel role evolving in Malaysia over the next five-ten years?

General counsel will increasingly need to be experts in change management. Many in-house lawyers are now required to run or support change projects, whether that is part of a wider corporate initiative or addressing changes in legal operations. Yet lawyers have not typically had any formal instruction in this field. The need to do more with less resource, as well as embracing legal tech to bring efficiencies and cost savings, means that general counsels often find themselves in a continuous process of evaluating and evolving their ways of working. General counsel will require a specific toolkit of skills, including a sound understanding of communication techniques, management styles and group dynamics, if they are to successfully deliver the tangible, sustained change, and true behavioural transformation that will inevitably be expected from them.