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What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

In my experience the key qualities required to be successful are comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the legal framework relevant for our operations, and the ability to proactively adapt to new legislative changes. Additionally, in-depth knowledge of the strategy and business operations of the company, a comprehensive internal network, the ability to gain trust within the organisation, high ethical standards and continuous focus on value creation for the business operations are important qualities required to be successful.

Do you have any effective techniques for getting the most out of external counsel, in terms of how to instruct them?

The starting point is to select the right external advisor for the assignment, and we have thorough discussions on that for all the jurisdictions where we have business operations. Apart from that we usually start every assignment with a scoping discussion where also the timeline, fees and format of the deliverable are clarified and agreed upon. We have frequent interactions with our advisors during the assignment to discuss technical issues and to avoid any misunderstandings, for example, on the factual assumptions. We also spend time with our advisors to share knowledge on our business operations, our policies and guidelines for management of tax processes. The overall objective of all of this is to ensure that the final deliverable meets our needs and expectations.

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

The OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project to counteract harmful tax practices has had a tremendous impact on tax legislation globally, leading to tax reforms in many countries where Statkraft has business operations. These reforms have significantly increased the complexity of the tax legislation both at domestic levels as well as in the tax treaties concluded between the different countries. Tax reforms are also implemented more rapidly than before. Thus, we are now navigating in an environment where the ability to quickly adapt to legislative changes has become increasingly important both for our business and the tax department.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most, particularly within the tax field?

In the tax field I expect more use of technology in the exchange of information with the tax authorities also in the way that tax authorities would have more immediate access to our accounting and tax data for tax audit purposes etc. I also expect that we will continue to use more technology to improve the efficiency and quality of core processes such as tax risk management, legal structure management and within the area of transfer pricing.

What can law firms do to improve their services to the legal department?

Law firms should stay on top of technological advancements in their service offerings as well as in the form they communicate with and deliver their services to us. Furthermore, they should invest in our relationship by making sure they really understand our business and our key policies, such as our risk appetite in terms of tax optimisation. They should also proactively ask for feedback after an assignment has been completed which they can consider for future assignments.

What steps have you taken to integrate the tax speciality within the rest of the business areas of the group?

We have taken several steps, but one important factor has been to ensure that we are involved at an early stage, for example in relation to M&A projects, so that we are able to influence key decisions before they are taken. Another important factor has been to ensure that we have tax professionals in the locations where significant business operations take place. Rather than building up a huge tax department at the headquarter level in Norway, we see the benefit of our professionals working very closely with the business areas at the locations where the business operations actually take place.

FOCUS ON:

Value Creation

In my experience it is equally important for in-house professionals as for law firms to really focus on how they can improve their way of working to create value for their clients. Therefore, in our tax department we have been running a performance culture program for the last two to three years. The overall objective has been to discuss and agree on how we work individually and as a team to create value for the organisation, to increase team-spirit as well as to set an ambition for the department. We have focused on such topics as how we prioritize our deliverables, ensure the right quality in our work, meet customer expectations, work efficiently to get the most out of our time and utilise our resources best as a team. This has triggered many interesting discussions as well as concrete changes to the way we work and collaborate with each other and our customers.  We also agreed to a number of performance actions that we relate to in our daily work. Going forward we will work actively with revisiting the performance actions to adapt to changes in the business and ensure that new team members are on boarded on the culture in the tax team.

When embarking on such a programme it is, in my experience, important to ensure commitment from all the team members and to facilitate an open and honest dialogue on the chosen topics. In my view, it is also important to focus on a dedicated set of areas where improvement is really needed. In order to identify these improvement areas, it was helpful for us to conduct a pre-assessment by also talking to internal and external stakeholders to get their perspectives on our way of work and deliverables.
Overall, the programme has been a great success and I would recommend other legal and tax departments to consider running similar programmes to improve their performance and value creation for their organisations.