Jobs

Our client is now recruiting for a Junior Legal Counsel.  You will be directly Head of Legal Department

Roles and Responsibilities

Basic Purpose of the role

This role will work with the Head of Legal Department to provide a high quality service to the company’s business operations in Africa, CIS and Middle East countries. The role will involve providing essential legal support and day-to-day advice across the business operations and being responsible for a diverse range of commercial, corporate, data protection and legal compliance projects.

This role is an excellent opportunity for a junior legal counsel to join a dynamic and thriving company where they can benefit from early responsibility. The breadth of work offered means there will be opportunities for the successful candidate to get a broad range of experience supporting a wide variety of projects

Key Responsibilities

The job title does not define or limit the duties, he/she may be required to carry out other work within his/her abilities from time to time at our request. The company reserves the right to introduce changes in line with technological developments which may impact upon your job duties or methods of working. We expect the person in this position to be managing the following in general but not limited to;

Legal

• Amend and review of commercial contracts, distributorship Agreements, basic purchase agreements, distributor authorization letters.
• Draft legal related documents (i.e. cease and desist letters, notice of termination of contracts).
• Liaise with external counsels in South Africa, Morocco, UAE and Bahrain and other jurisdictions as and when required.

• Knowledge of US OFAC export regulations and trade related sanctions
• Conduct Anti-bribery and Competition law training to employees in UAE, South Africa and Morocco (having proper knowledge of the FCPA & UK Bribery Act is a plus)

• Conduct legal orientation on boarding to new joiners
• Perform legal research to keep updated with the regulations and provisions in (UAE, South Africa and other countries where the company trades in.
• Maintain a filing system for all legal related documents.
• Liaise with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce for document attestation.
• KYC screening and conducting due diligence on vendors and customers.
• Attend to legal administrative duties of the department.

Support function to other internal departments

Finance/ Accounts/Controlling

• Completion of KYC and due diligence forms requested by banks, insurance companies and finance related external stakeholders
• Coordinate with finance and accounting team for legal related supporting documentation during the financial audit period.
• Provides support to finance team with regards to review of legal related documents for finance team, attending meetings where a legal personnel is required and providing advice to the finance team as and when required.
• Prepare and submitting payment and budget approvals to the finance and controlling team for the legal department
• Coordinate with finance, accounts and controlling team in making sure that payments to external stakeholders made on time.

IT

• Review of policies related to IT, amendment and drafting of agreements related to software purchase, telecommunications etc.
• Coordinate with IT team for legal projects requiring the expertise and advise of IT department
• Upload and filing of the various legal documents, conducting KYC and screening of new vendors and customers.

LOGISTICS

• Amend and review service contracts related to logistics and warehousing services, e.g. forklift maintenance and labour supply contracts.
• Coordinate with logistics team regarding goods shipment terms, drafting and reviewing shipping documents and advising on the shipping incoterms favourable to the company.
• Create and maintain updated summarised US export control (OFAC regulations) and shipping file for reference by the logistics team.
• Monitor and advise on any shipping embargos in any of the company’s trade territories.

HR & ADMIN

• Liaise with the PRO and administration team on sending out agreement copies via courier and ensuring it reaches the recipient.
• Review and amend facilities and services related contracts. Provides specialist advice and guidance on a range of legal issues ensuring all risks are identified, understood and managed.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

Qualifications/ Training Required

Essential:

• LLB / BA Law or any equivalent degree
• Minimum 3-5 years’ experience as legal consultant position in a law firm or in-house legal position

Experience / Knowledge Required

Essential:

• Experience in a commercial legal department in drafting, negotiating and advising clients on a wide range of commercial contracts
• Good understanding of GCC commercial agency laws
• Sound knowledge of UAE & Free Zone Laws and Regulations.
• Competent to drafting and reviewing contracts in Arabic and English.
• High computer literacy (excel, PPT, word etc.)

Additional Skills/ Requirements

Essential:

• Ability to work independently and have confidence to advise and liaise at all levels of seniority within the business
• Strong communication skills and able to engage and build relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders within the business
• Ability to manage multiple projects at any one time
• Willingness to learn, work hard and to become a key contributor to a growing business
• Proactive, excellent interpersonal skills, well organized, ability to write complex legal documents/reports, analytical and problem-solving techniques.
• Practical and commercially astute
• Exercises sound judgement

Interactions

Internal Interactions

• Business Unit Heads
• Leadership Team members
• Line managers and team members in a variety of departments

External Interactions

• Distributors’ representatives
• Legal/Specialist Advisors