Legal Advisor II, Litigation and Group Functions at Standard Bank Group

Job Purpose 

This role will:- 

• Identify and evaluate the legal risks to which the Bank is exposed, to draw them to the attention of the various units which they affect and give counsel to the various stakeholders who must make a decision on the best approach for the Bank to take in addressing and dealing with the issues raised.
• Provide legal advisory services to the Bank and deliver professional services to stakeholders based on sound legal principles which support the minimising of legal risks to the bank.
• Ensure adherence to any other relevant laws and regulations.

Key Responsibilities 

Strategy and Partner support

• Assist the department in attending various appropriate committee meetings, meetings with customers (where required by stakeholders), disciplinary hearings and any other committees whenever required in order to build good working relationships as well as assist in better delivery of their legal support function.
• Support Group Functions in ensuring that the Group's reputation/image is adequately safe-guarded and maintained with regard to the business principles and policies and business risk adopted within the Group operations.
• Ensuring Group legal risk governance standards are effectively embedded resulting in nil audit findings.
• Build, develop and maintain relationships across the Bank and within Standard Bank Group for better delivery of the Bank’s strategy, and collaboration with Standard Bank Group with respect to seamless delivery of services.
• Support Group Functions to develop new policies, following existing policies and identifying and reporting any policy exceptions.
• Management of service level agreements involving service providers such as external legal counsel and ensure that external counsel complies with agreed timelines in respect of various tasks more specifically described in the service level agreements.
• Organize and manage all physical and online records and documents in an orderly manner in a safe and secure place with a locking system or selective access (as appropriate) while maintaining accurate and up-to-date databases of various records, reports and documents required in the fulfilment of their role.

Product 

Contract management

• Assist, interpret and advise on complex queries with respect to the operation and content of the relevant agreements, including bank contracts, providing legal notes and briefing external counsel to provide legal opinions on legislation which impacts or has the potential to impact existing contracts and/ or the environment in which the Bank operates.
• Review, draft, negotiate (where required) robust legal agreements, being mindful of the legal implications, all relevant laws, regulations, Bank policies and procedures.
• Ensure that all documentation is legal and binding on all parties involved, thereby reducing the risk of loss through unenforceable documents and unnecessary expenses incurred in trying to enforce invalid documentation.
• Manage legal aspects and be involved in project work e.g. relating to new product developments/product amendments and related documentation, process improvement and enhancement.
• Maintain a database of standard legal contracts and regularly review, update and amend the templates.

Litigation management

• Proactively pursue alternative dispute resolution with a view to avoid litigation and associated losses.
• Develop a clear strategy from the onset on all litigation matters involving the Bank, seeking legal opinions and advice on complex matters and keeping stakeholders abreast of the status of the litigation matters.
• Manage and monitor litigation by or against the Bank, in respect to disputes arising from the Bank’s attempts to exercise its right to recover unpaid debts by Bank clients who have defaulted on their Bank facilities.
• Proactively manage and monitor litigation by or against the Bank, and associated legal costs, to minimise the Bank’s loss arising from threatened legal claims and ongoing court matters.
• Proactively manage and monitor litigation involving Bank clients where the Bank is obliged to comply with directions and orders from court decisions, including but not limited to garnishee orders, mareva orders, third party orders and succession matters, to minimise the Bank’s costs and/or loss arising from ongoing court matters.
• Ensure that timely and accurate instructions and information is provided to the Bank’s counsel handling the litigation matters involving the Bank to enable them to represent the Bank adequately.
• Ensure that potential and actual litigation matters are escalated in line with the applicable operational risk parameters and compliance risk governance standards, and reported in terms of the relevant insurance requirements as determined by the Bank and/ or the terms of any applicable insurance policies.

Advisory and query management

• Interpret legal issues to all levels of managerial and non-managerial staff.
• Action inward communication from customers, agents, government agencies and lawyers within the required Bank standards and SLA
• Act on the quality of legal advice and speed of delivery while ensuring continuous improvement relating to design and continuously improving existing and new business processes.
• Receiving and end-to-end processing of warrants of investigation and agency notices from relevant authorities, including but not limited to the CBK, CMA, EACC and KRA and attending to related to documentation and correspondence, ensuring no reputational exposure to the Bank.
• Assisting investigation teams from relevant authorities with documents required for scrutiny of accounts as stipulated under a statutory provision or court orders.
• Diligent maintenance and monitoring of related court orders to follow-up on compliance.

Intellectual Property management

• Assist employees to use material covered by IP rights in line with legislative, regulatory and contractual requirements, including any international co-existence agreements to which the Bank is bound.
• Assist Group Functions to comply with the rules of any independent advertising regulators.
• Manage any advertising complaints, where applicable, instituted against the Bank, through an independent advertising regulator, in Kenya.
• Manage the relationships between Group members and providers of external IP legal services in respect of those IP matters, which are within their mandate to manage. 

Reports

• Create, manage, update and compile reports on the legal matter management system.
• Extract and provide reports on legal matters to line managers and stakeholders.
• Pro-actively manage, collate, compile, distribute legal reports for timeous submission to various stakeholders and committees.  This will include engaging the relevant members of the legal teams for their input to the reports.

Knowledge sharing

• Keep abreast of regulatory, local, international and market developments generally and also with regard to the relevant agreements and ensure that this knowledge is filtered through to the rest of the team.
• Create awareness of legal developments that may affect the Bank, evaluating legal implications thereof and suggesting / implementing risk mitigants.
• Proactively manage and participate in knowledge sharing, by way of in-house training programs and materials, within the Litigation and Group Function unit, the Legal team and with the wider Bank (with strong emphasis on Group Functions teams) keeping them apprised of developments in one’s area of specialisation or expertise thereby enhancing effective delivery of the Litigation and Group Function strategy by all legal counsel.

People

• Assist stakeholders by giving opinions and recommendations on various legal matters.
• Continue self enhancement of knowledge and expertise; attend relevant training and ensure self-development occurs on a continuous basis in order to properly address legal risks arising in transactional work and obtain adequate technical knowledge to understand the regulatory framework that applies to the Bank as well as the risks to which the Bank is exposed to.

Risk, Regulatory, Prudential and Compliance

• Advise on adherence to all relevant laws, regulations and bank policies and procedures.
• Review of relevant internal and external communications, such as circulars, legal reviews/judgements relevant to ensure that any development, new requirements or external risks are properly taken cognizance of.
• Monitor and advise on the adherence to the regulatory environment in which the Bank operates.
• Advise on legal considerations for the outlined credit strategy for recovery of non-performing loans and provide legal input on proposed litigation strategy and legal aspects of enforcement with a view of recovering unsettled exposures.
• Provide legal input into the Bank’s risk management strategies, the practical application and operations thereof.
• Proactive identification, investigation and escalation of legal risks and/ or inefficiencies presented from time to time.
• Conduct risk assurance prior to scheduled audits in line with the proposed audit approach and scope with a view to providing the auditors with a list of known issues and action plans to address them. Assist in resolving identified audit issues following completion of audits, within the advised period and where required, prescribe / implement appropriate measures to avoid recurrence of the identified audit issues.
• Proactively develop and manage relationships with key external stakeholders including local regulators and external legal counsel relevant to the business and external regulatory bodies to ensure that the Bank receives appropriate co-operation when required in transaction management and that the Bank meets and is seen to meet regulatory compliance.

QUALIFICATIONS

Minimum Qualifications

• Type of Qualification: First Degree
• Field of Study: Legal

Other Minimum Qualifications, certifications or professional memberships

• Post Graduate Diploma Kenya School of Law.
• Admitted advocate of the High Court in Kenya.

Other Preferred Qualifications, certifications or professional memberships

• Relevant certificates in banking law / litigation / mediation / arbitration practice being an added advantage.

Experience Required
Legal

• 8 - 10 years
• Proven experience in provision of legal advice, preferably within a top-tier law firm with a thriving commercial, corporate, M&A, and/or financial services practice or within a financial (banking) institution.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Behavioral Competencies:

• Adopting Practical Approaches
• Challenging Ideas
• Checking Details
• Developing Expertise
• Directing People
• Examining Information
• Interpreting Data
• Making Decisions
• Meeting Timescales
• Providing Insights
• Team Working
• Upholding Standards

Technical Competencies:

• Dispute Resolution
• Financial Industry Regulatory Framework
• Legal Advisory & Interpretation
• Legal Knowledge