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

The legal team in Mercedes-Benz Malaysia provides legal advice, support, and strategy for the following operations.

The assembly, wholesale and retail operations of Mercedes-Benz vehicles and parts for Malaysia.

Retail operations for 30 dealerships in Malaysia.

The Mercedes-Benz training academy for young apprentices.

The steering operations for the sale of Mercedes-Benz vehicles general distributor markets in ten countries.

Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation.

Overseas hub services.

Mercedes-Benz Malaysia and Mercedes-Benz AG developed an e-commerce platform as part of the Mercedes-Benz strategy to allow authorized Mercedes-Benz dealers to advertise and sell vehicles via an online platform. Customers are now able to make an online reservation for their selected vehicles through this platform. Further developments are currently ongoing to implement digital contracts and documents. The legal team collaborated with the developers and local teams to provide legal advice, legal strategy, contractual templates and drafting of contractual terms for the entire platform.

Mercedes-Benz Malaysia is home to several international hub services which service more than 15 countries worldwide. The legal department is in charge of drafting the framework agreements between Mercedes-Benz Malaysia and the other countries for the purpose of providing services globally.

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 online digital contract management system was developed by the Malaysian Mercedes-Benz legal team. This initiative resulted in contracts being approved expeditiously. In going digital, the system also served as a digital storage for all contracts, reducing paper consumption. The system is currently being used by both companies to manage all contractual documents.

What are some of your main tips for dealing with a crisis?

The first step in dealing with a crisis is to not panic and make any rash decisions. The next is to deal with and resolve the crisis as a team. All stakeholders in the company must come together and contribute their expertise to solve the open topics. Once solutions are decided, the next step is to determine the resources needed to implement the solution and how long it would take to solve the issue. Constant tracking of the issues would ensure nothing remains unsolved or forgotten.

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

The first step is to understand the business and the needs of stakeholders. As lawyers, we need to know what the business of the company is, how it operates, the issues faced, and how to provide support. The motto of the Mercedes-Benz legal department is “to protect, enable and defend”. It would also be helpful for lawyers to speak in clear and plain language, to bridge to communication gap between colleagues.

Another step is also through branding of the legal department. Legal departments often act behind the scenes and are invisible to colleagues. At Mercedes-Benz, we developed our own department corporate shirts and t-shirts so that colleagues would be able to identify who their lawyers are, and the lawyers could be seen in the company. The hashtag, “loveyourlawyers” was adopted by the legal team as part of its branding strategy. While the hashtag at first was amusing to the colleagues, it then became the preferred phrase used when someone wanted to thank the legal team, ending the email with “loveyourlawyer”.