About

Danske Commodities, an international trader of energy-related commodities, has an experienced and robust legal department. The team comprises of 13 members who are divided into three sub-teams covering compliance, legal and market access. The integration of the market access team into group legal ensured closer cooperation and a new and more efficient way of distributing tasks between the sub-teams. The recent growth in the department has stimulated a significant decrease in the reliance on external lawyers and an overall decrease in all legal costs. Internalising expertise has allowed the legal department to have a major impact on the company’s processes and renovate contract management. The team introduced the digital signing of contracts, which led to an improvement in overall efficiency and the reduction of physical documents. This is a particularly useful feature for Danske Commodities due to the fact the organisation requires contracts with counterparts to be in place prior to trading, the renovation has vastly improved these processing times. The biggest challenge that the team has encountered in the last few years is the variable energy markets, which can often be difficult to predict. From a legal perspective, an intensification of regulatory requirements has required a high degree of industry knowledge in order to keep up with the growing demands of the organisation. The increase in regulatory requirements led to the legal function closely advising the senior management group on any advances in the market. Jesper Pape Larsen, director and head of group legal, states that ‘as a proactive market participant, Danske Commodities has made efforts to adapt to the new regulations in the best possible way, and group legal has had a major role in these processes’.