How have you attempted to bring the legal department closer to your business colleagues?

There is always a need to interact with various teams and ensure that we are all working towards achieving the company’s goals. Our legal team works closely with various departments – products, engineering, technology, marketing, and growth, among others; and provides advice on the daily operations of the business.

The team regularly attends product review, growth, and market strategy sessions, and we have been able to educate the company on the importance of including us in all stages of project development, from conceptualisation to execution or launch. We have been able to build a closer relationship between the legal team and other teams by ensuring a companywide understanding of the role that the legal team plays and having an alignment in risk appetites.

How does the in-house legal function contribute to the overall dispute resolution strategy of the organisation?

Dispute resolution is a key part of our remit in the legal department with the ultimate aim of having an established effective dispute resolution strategy for the company as a whole – which can be applied not only to litigation and similar claims, but in relation to other third-party disputes emanating from contracts, customer relations and other legal arrangements.

Our dispute resolution strategy is focused on preventing litigation, especially for claims relating to customer disputes; curtailing potential financial exposure of the company arising from third party claims; and minimising costs and expenses in effectively handling disputes.

To achieve these goals, we conduct early case assessments aimed at identifying the basis of the claim, analysing the facts of each dispute and figuring out the possibility of an amicable resolution with the claimant, as well as reducing or eliminating possible costs and exposure to the company.