About

Mark Hultum, head of legal Middle East and Africa (MEA), leads the legal team at Deutsche Bank comprised of senior lawyer Nadhira Rajcoomar – based in Johannesburg – and supported by two legal staff members, one in Dubai International Financial Centre and one in Johannesburg. Both Hultum and Rajcoomar have delivered a considerable body of work in support of the bank’s business in a geographically, socially and ethnically diverse region and are trusted advisors to the local and regional senior management teams on all matters pertaining to legal affairs in the MEA region, and as Hultum says ‘are collectively a one-stop reference point to all matters pertaining to legal and regulatory risk’. In the last two years the team conducted an extensive review of all legal support requirements within the MEA region involving close collaboration with senior legal, business and regional management colleagues over a six month period, and has generated a refined legal coverage model for the region which ensures better alignment with legal expertise enhancing client service and using resources more efficiently. The team has also implemented a new reporting and billing system called ‘Enterprise Legal Management’ as part of a larger digitisation strategy and is now creating training on the system across the company for non-lawyers. Additionally, transactional highlights with the team’s involvement include the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s US$17.5bn multi tranche bond and Iraq’s US$1bn US-aid backed government bond. Working collaboratively as part of a global cross-departmental effort involving lawyers and other regulatory and business professionals in London, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong and Singapore the legal team worked on MEA compliance from an operational, organisational, contractual documentation and client communication perspective with the new MiFID II framework for financial institutions. This presented a particular challenge in the region as the team was required to interpret a new European directive with little or conflicting regulatory advice concerning implementation outside of the EU. Additionally, they provided support to the Bank’s art, culture and sports and communications departments to successfully bring works from DB’s art collection to the “German Encounters: Contemporary Masterworks” exhibition in Qatar. The successful conclusion of the exhibition required the team’s support from beginning to end, and covered safe transit and storage of the art collection to and from Frankfurt, negotiation and collaboration with Qatar Museums, exhibition arrangements and marketing, and intellectual property and licensing of the art works. About the team’s strength, Mark Hultum says: ‘The team has again been critical in helping their colleagues navigate another unprecedented year of regulatory and organisational change for Deutsche Bank. As regulation has increased (together with regulatory scrutiny and expectations), so too has legal complexity and the team’s workload. It is a testament to the department’s resilience, efficiency and teamwork that it continues to successfully support the bank’s MEA franchise and strategic objectives notwithstanding its small size’.