Team size:  33

Key team members: Jacelyn Chan, Jia En Ng, Shereen Ee, Liyan Tay, Rushda Ali, Divya Nair, Lim Kwang Ren (until 5th September 2023), Sivakumar Murugesan (from 19th June 2023)

Major legal advisers: Rajah & Tann LLC (Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar), Allen & Gledhill (Singapore), Drew & Napier (Singapore)

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

Our team has been involved in a wide variety of legal matters, which include antitrust investigations, employment, commercial (including partnership agreements with major grocery chains), fintech (including the launch of our pandapay wallets, gift cards and vouchers), regulatory, corporate, public affairs (including advising on the proposed new legislation on platform works).

Can you sum up the team culture or ethos?

We are a team of talented, highly driven, yet collaborative individuals. Although we generally work independently and autonomously, each team member is always ready to step in to assist and help each other (whenever help is required).

We collaborate, cooperate, and communicate openly within our team and with other stakeholders to ensure that projects and business initiatives are completed on time.

Growth is always encouraged, and feedback is given (and received) regularly so that each team member can work on getting 1% better every day, which is one of our foodpanda values!

Even though we work hard and strive for excellence, we do value a work-life balance and currently have a hybrid working arrangement where we are in the office three days a week. This more flexible working arrangement helps our team to balance and blend work and our personal lives and obligations, which enables us to work more productively and effectively.

One example of the effectiveness of this hybrid working arrangement is when we need to collaborate with our legal colleagues who are based in other countries. As we are part of the Delivery Hero Group (which is headquartered in Berlin, Germany), the time difference between Singapore and Berlin, and even amongst some of the APAC countries such as Pakistan or Bangladesh, means that we may need to work or occasionally take calls after 6pm. If there are any urgent or important work projects that need to be managed outside of official work hours, our team is always ready to support and enable the business while working from home or outside of the office.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives?

In addition to legal matters, our team also works closely with other teams and stakeholders on preparing and implementing various compliance policies (including AML/CFT and data protection) as well as conducting training on these policies.

Some of our team members play an active part in various foodpanda employee resource groups, such as Panda Pride, which champions diversity and inclusion at foodpanda as well as other CSR programmes and initiatives, such as volunteering to be a foodpanda rider or walker for a day, or a foodpanda picker in our pandamarts.

Being involved in these CSR programmes and initiatives allows our team members to get involved with the greater foodpanda community. Volunteering as a foodpanda rider or walker, or a foodpanda picker also allows our team members to understand the difficulties and issues faced by riders, walkers and pickers, which in turn enables them to better understand how foodpanda’s business operations work.

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

Our team works with our local legal teams on the ground in each of our 11 countries to ensure that risks are assessed before the launch of a new business vertical or project to ensure that the risks are properly understood by all stakeholders, documented and mitigated (where necessary). Carrying out a proper risk assessment and mitigating risks (where necessary) ensures that foodpanda complies with the relevant laws and regulations (for example, license requirements or building and zoning codes). This drastically reduces the instances of serious disputes developing, and ensures that foodpanda does not need to spend resources or an inordinate amount of time on resolving disputes, as these do not typically occur in the first instance.

Additionally, when drafting or negotiating an agreement or contract, our team always makes it a point to ensure that the appropriate governing law clause and dispute resolution mechanism is included in the contract.

In the event that a dispute arises, our team will assess the situation and advise the business stakeholders on the risks, costs involved with litigation or arbitration, chances of succeeding and cost-effective alternatives to litigation or arbitration with the objective of preserving the business relationship and ensuring that there is a win-win outcome for foodpanda and our partners (where possible).