About

Growing from a single lawyer in 2011 into a team of five lawyers in 2018 and moving the legal department at Kuehne + Nagel Management MEA from the state of mere “firefighting” against litigations and claims into being a proactive and existing member of the business the team has achieved a remarkable amount in a short time. Michael Schoonis is regional general counsel MEA and leads a legal team of four lawyers who come from diverse backgrounds, speak different languages (English, Arabic, Dutch, Portuguese, German, Afrikaans and Turkish), and have different experiences. Fady Zedan, a regional counsel in the team explains the driving force behind the team is as follows: ‘It has always been the core value of the team to pool this diverse knowledge and legal capabilities for the mutual and reciprocal benefit of the team members and the business. This proactivity has added value to the business by providing advice and optimising business process to avert risks and at the same time maintain a profitable, sustainable and healthy business practice’. In order to maintain constant contact with the remote business teams in the region and at the same time maintain legal excellence, the legal team has utilised new technologies such as creating computer based trainings to impart automated legal trainings to the different business unit teams sitting around the region and also a ticketing system to queue contracts for review and provide timely updates to business personnel about the current status of their contracts. The team has been successful in closing two relatively large acquisitions, Zet Farma in Turkey and Trillvane in Kenya in 2017. Additionally, the major regulatory and legislative evolution happening in Saudi Arabia and UAE has affected the team in terms of trying to keep up with the developments specifically in taxation and arbitration proceedings. Zedan describes his team and its successes as remarkable given its size. He says, ‘being a small team sitting in different locations and covering the entire MEA region which comprises of 20 countries, 23 entities and more than 2,779 full time employees, the MEA legal team believes in optimisation and efficiency to the highest extent’.