About

Bruce McAlister, general counsel global growth and MENAT, leads the legal team responsible for Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, having been with GE for 18 years. McAlister has overall responsibility for global strategy and resourcing of legal and compliance expertise. The legal and compliance team in GE MENAT comprises of 43 people, a combination of qualified lawyers in the various jurisdictions, compliance professionals, contract managers and a legal fellow’s program, which supports female diversity. Over the last two years, the team have continued in its drive for regionalisation outside of the major MENAT centres, building a large presence in Egypt, Pakistan and Algeria. This regionalisation is part of the legal and compliance strategy for MENAT in which the best and brightest in the legal and compliance field are hired in local jurisdictions to drive the businesses’ growth objectives in these countries. On this, McAlister says, ‘having experienced local resources, enables the GE businesses, to be agile, more customer facing with an increased sense of speed with the delivery of solutions’. On the technology side, the GE legal and compliance team has adopted an outside counsel billing system, which provides real time assessment of fees in matters, together with retaining the integrity of GE MENAT’s “best friends” panel. McAlister adds, ‘this technology has reduced the burden on legal counsels for matter management, at the same time improved the sharing across the team, of legal firms experience’. The GE business divisions have seen the GE revenue grow from US$13.2bn to US$14.6bn during the last two years, where achievement was in a large part, made by the expertise of the legal and compliance team. The formation and subsequent integration of BHGE was a major structural change in GE Oil and Gas, following the merger with Baker Hughes, resulting in one of the largest oil and gas product and services businesses. The team also worked on joint ventures across the region, specifically with BHGE in Algeria, GE Power and GE Healthcare in Saudi Arabia, GE Aviation being the preferred commercial engine of choice for the Middle Eastern carriers, resulting in closer strategic alliances, and GE Transportation, securing a key rail transaction in Egypt. In McAlister’s team there are three general counsels in particular that have made a significant impact. McAlister identifies that Mohammed Noaman, general counsel of GE Power, comprising of GE’s gas and steam products, together with GRID solutions and services in the region worked in particular on restructuring, strengthening compliance and implementing this enlargement of the practice area in the group. Noura Benfarhat, as general counsel of BHGE in the region, integrated the team amongst the various products from the legacy GE oil and gas and the services platforms at BHGE, at the same time driving the team to continue to deliver upon the growth targets. And, Azra Cakil, general counsel for Turkey, provides expertise on everything to do with Turkey as well as being heavily involved in the company’s compliance with US law regarding Iran, its investment into and then subsequent withdrawal.