Team size: 20 people

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Across the globe, Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited and its group companies, are recognised as a leading energy company in Thailand. Over the past years, our team has been participating deeply in a variety of major transactions in the energy, infrastructure, and telecommunication sectors both domestic and cross-border deals. We possess extensive experience in various areas such as energy concession, M&A, public-private partnership, project and corporate financing, dispute resolution, capital market transaction. Despite Gulf plays an important role in Thai energy industry, we prospect an opportunity expanding our business to international markets. In 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we decided to make our biggest move into Europe energy market. In September 2020, Gulf successfully acquired the 50% equity interest in German offshore windfarm of installed capacity of 464.8 megawatts, Borkum Riffgrund 2 Offshore Wind Farm, valued at approximately €550m. This transaction is one of our notable transactions because Gulf was marked as the first Thai energy player pioneering an investment in global European energy market and forming a strategic partnership with an international market two leader in offshore windfarms. As head in-house legal team, my team and I contributed greatly and intensively throughout the transaction and of course, the whole transaction was done online. Addressing the commercial objectives of the company while maintaining the mark-ups attractive was very challenging when it comes to the contract negotiation. Even though the bidding process was very competitive and taken during the hardship of pandemic, we believe that excellent teamwork and a strong commercial strategy with a deep understanding of business were key factors that led us to success.

Did the pandemic lead to a lasting increase in the interaction your legal team has with the strategic plans of the company?

Besides the success of acquisition of Borkum Riffgrund 2 Offshore Wind Farm project during the Covid-19 pandemic, we have achieved a remarkable step whereby Gulf successfully invested in 42% equity interest Intouch Holding, and its group companies, such as Advance and Thaicom — a notable telecommunication group company in Thailand. This marks magnificent milestone in the energy and telecommunication industries in Thailand. It was evidenced that there was no boundary or limitation for our legal team to achieve Gulf’s strategic objective during the hardship of pandemic.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house legal industry?

I consider advanced proficiency in coding and programming to be the skills that a corporate legal team needs to succeed in the modern in-house industry. It is a great value added to our own legal field as it helpfully enhances our existing legal knowledge. Applying and updating such skills in accordance with the latest technological developments will innovate ordinary work and improve business processes in our area of expertise. For example, designing a document automation system to generate several thousand electronic agreements will minimize manual tasks and reduce the day-to-day workload, while also increasing efficiency and accuracy in creating contractual agreements. Considering our coding and programming skills together with our legal knowledge, we can learn how to find the perfect balance between creative and analytical excellence, to deal with problems in a methodical way, to approach difficulties more effectively, both in legal and tech-related situations, and to develop our critical and logical thinking that is necessary for managerial roles.