Legal Counsel Contracting(Group Operations) at Aspen Pharma Group

ROLE PURPOSE:

To manage business unit contracting requirements for Group Operations. To responsibly, pro-actively and efficiently service the legal requirements of business units within Aspen Group Operations as an embedded legal function.

SPECIFIC OUTCOMES / ACCOUNTABILITY:

Legal Support to Group Operations

• Manage legal matters from receipt of instruction to conclusion of the legal matter (i.e. ‘end to end’).

Commercial Agreements

• Review, draft, and negotiate a wide range of corporate/commercial agreements. Own the end-to-end ‘authoring’ process of the relevant agreements by engaging with relevant internal and external stakeholders;
• Review ancillary/supporting documents against the main agreements to identify anomalies and where required, draft the relevant provisions required;
• Liaise with and advise business partners and key stakeholders on commercial agreements;
• Liaise and negotiate with external third parties for contract related matters;
• Manage Aspen’s active agreements to identify Aspen’s rights and obligations in terms of these agreements as identified;
• Manage execution process of agreements through to confirmation of filing in the Aspen agreements repository, subject to SOPs and ways of working agreed relating to closing of files;
• Timeously collate internal business partner comments on agreements across departments in Aspen and ensure these are addressed, including drafting the appropriate provisions where required;
• Collate schedules/appendices to agreements and ensure accuracy of content and alignment with the relevant agreement;
• Prepare summaries of transactions, with legal and operational items for post-closing implementation by business areas;
• Absolute accuracy in agreement drafting, both as to documenting, content and alignment across sets of agreements;
• Continuously review and identify gaps in Group Operations legal templates and standard terms and conditions and action improvements;
• Develop and Implement legal template standardization across Group Operations business areas.

Management of Legal Risks - Legal Opinions and Legal Solutions

• Provide sound legal opinion on all contract related matters and where needed, other Group Operations advise;
• Ensure stakeholders are continually communicated to regarding legal requests that impact a contract agreement with consistency;
• Ensure accuracy and alignment, across a set of agreements to mitigate any risks and costs associated with confliction or disparity in clauses;
• Ensure all contracts are legally sound and compliant by researching legal implications of relevant legislation and case law;
• Identify the risk profile of agreements and communicate with business partners to offer solutions to mitigate same;
• Update relevant business areas with legislative amendments and recommend and oversee implementation of any necessary changes;
• Prepare manuals and checklists for business areas within Group Operations where required;
• Ensure adherence to the compliance framework of the Aspen Group where required;
• Identify and implement training/learning solutions to empower and enable business partners on legal topics where possible and to communicate and distil legal concepts to the business partners, ensuring that lessons learned are communicated;
• Ensure stakeholders are adequately trained on legal requests;
• Identify, develop, manage and implement process improvement initiatives to facilitate business operations and legal delivery to business partners.
• The position requires the incumbent to think Group-wide, but act and focus on the work to which he/she has been allocated. Act as the primary legal advisor to the relevant Group Operations business areas and other support functions by providing legal advice, counsel and guidance on the full range of legal regulatory issues.

Anti-trust support

• Review and where necessary collate information with anti-trust reviews and filings, including co-ordinating data collection between internal Aspen departments and review with external counsel under the direction of the SBIM.

Litigation

Raise potential litigation matters to the line manager, with analysis of the merits of the matter and suggested solutions;

• Work with business partners throughout litigation process to achieve business outcomes and ensure the process is adequately managed;
• Where necessary, under supervision of the line manager and/or SBIM, manage litigation process with external counsel and manage legal fees according to Group policies and procedures;
• Provide status updates to relevant regional compliance officers for purposes of periodic reporting on litigation matters.

Intellectual Property

• Ensure knowledge of IP and understand the implications in Group Operations;
• Take initiative for staying informed of developments in IP law and attend training where possible;
• Identify IP issues that may require review or input from Group Legal IP and manage accordingly.

Signed Agreement Repository

• Ensure the safekeeping of all signed Aspen original agreements in a sound, orderly and efficiently retrievable manner in accordance with SOPs and ways of working agreed within the team;
• Fully comply with Group policies and procedures relating to access to electronic copies of the signed Aspen original agreements;
• Manage administrative staff in relation to the above where required.

Legal Due Diligences

• Manage agreement audits and legal due diligences in respect of potential mergers, acquisitions and disposals;
• Collate and track status of queries across streams where required in the Group;
• Prepare all relevant reports.

Financial

• Design and implement solutions to achieve legal cost saving and efficiency to the company (including internal SOPs and external legal fee cost saving initiatives).

Learning and Development

Develop specialist legal expertise in business areas serviced by Group Operations Legal, including but not limited to Information Technology, Pharmacovigilance, Regulatory, Quality and general pharmaceutical manufacturing operations.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE:

• Law Degree or postgraduate Degree – LLB;
• Admitted Attorney;
• Preferably membership of professional body (Law Society of SA and/or Legal Practice Council);
• Membership of Corporate Counsel Association of SA;
• 8 to 10 years legal experience in a law firm and/or a multinational in-house commercial/ operational legal environment;
• General commercial knowledge and experience;
• Extensive knowledge and experience in independently drafting and vetting legal agreements is essential, with a focus on drafting legal agreements and provisions that are not template based;
• Strong working knowledge and experience of general business and IT and pharmaceutical industry an advantage;
• Solid experience in drafting and negotiating local and international legal agreements and applying knowledge of legal analysis and principles to deliver full scope of strategic legal advisory services in line with the Aspen Group’s strategy and Group Operations business requirements.

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES:

Certain may require development:

• Taking full responsibility for management of tasks from end to end and closure of allocated matters in the most efficient and effective manner;
• Organisational, time management and planning skills in light of fluid workload and portfolios with the ability to manage numerous simultaneous projects and meet tight deadlines;
• Entrepreneurial and commercial analytical thinker who is solutions, results and service oriented;
• An ability to translate business problems into legal solutions in respect of identifying legal and compliance risks, defining mitigating actions, plans and execute actions;
• Robust interpersonal skills including negotiation skills, listening skills and influence;
• Advanced computer literacy;
• Excellent communication skills, written, verbal and non-verbal;
• Conflict resolution;
• Decision making skills and demonstrated ability to work at a level of independence and exercise of discretion in managing legal matters;
• Ability to deal with uncertainty, seek detail, take initiative and be regularly adaptable;
• Attention to detail;
• Ability to manage support staff effectively;
• Demonstrated ability to work in-consultation with relevant team and streams;
• Demonstrate and inspire confidence and trust from peers from external and internal business areas;
• Ability to work as a team member of the Aspen Group across the region and the world.

KNOWLEDGE:

• Legislation and legal practice management;
• Knowledge of policy and procedure;
• Complex contract drafting experience essential;
• Pharma and IT industry experience an advantage;
• Knowledge of business and the operations environment,
• Good corporate governance knowledge;
• Transaction/deal life cycle steps and management

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Full day office- based position, will need additional hours should an urgent matter arise;
• Ad hoc travel to Aspen sites