Legal Counsel: Regulatory Compliance, Competition Law and Corporate Affairs - Cape Town HQ at PepsiCo

Responsibilities

What we're looking for: 

We're looking for a Legal Counsel: Regulatory Compliance, Completition Law and Corporate Affairs. Successful incumbent will: 

• Responsible for assisting in the continued development, implementation, and improvement of the SA BU’s compliance agenda, incorporating legal considerations, and influencing company processes and practices.
• Includes communicating to all employees their responsibility for compliance, effectively educating them on the various program components.

Accountabilities: 

Compliance

• Development and driving of an integrated SA BU compliance framework, measurements and actions and a well-coordinated compliance program implementation.
• Development of compliance program policies and procedures and educating employees on the company's policies and procedures.
• Providing legal counsel on various commercial issues and conducted research into a variety of legal issues.
• Anticipated legal risks facing the company and developed company policy and positions on legal and compliance issues.
• Providing legal guidance and written opinions on all legal issues pertaining to the SA Business to ensure compliance with new and pending legislation.
• Work alongside the Corporate Affairs team with regard to vigilance on new legislation which may be promulgated and commentary thereon.

Research and Development

• End-to-end legal services partner for the research and development function of the SA BU.
• Interpretation of applicable legislation as well as legal opinions for the R&D function.
• Legal assistance with product liability issues as well as recalls.

Competition Law SA (including Botswana and Namibia)

• Drive Competition law adherence and risk mitigation for SA.
• Advising the business on Competition law risks associated with any sales strategies and trading terms.
• Ensure a regular and robust training programme is in place across SA BU to ensure adherence to the Competition Act.
• Advise the business of developments and Competition law matters in relevant territories as we expand into Africa (Botswana and Namibia).
• Assist the VP and General Counsel in interacting and corresponding with the Competition Commission and Tribunal on all Merger Filings (in conjunction with the M&A legal team) and any other matters impacting the SA BU.

Consumer Complaints

• Advise National Quality Manager on consumer complaints, which include drafting correspondence and settlement agreements/letters with consumers and dealing with Food Law matters for the BU including consumer complaints relating to illness and foreign objects and as well as PR threats and extortion cases.
• The first port of call-in terms of legal advice in instance of product liability matter.
• Maintain relationships with regulators in the food safety environment, particularly, Department of Health and the National Consumer Commission, amongst others.

Qualifications

• Must be a university graduate from an academically recognized institution with a Law or other appropriate degree.
• Must be a fluent in English.
• Must have not less than 8 to 10 years post-qualification experience, ideally some completed in-house and a strong record of functional expertise.
• Excellent analytical skills and the ability to manage and identify key issues in multiple complex inputs.
• Maturity to hold firm in the face of significant commercial pressure in order to ensure the right result for PepsiCo.
• Superb influencing and persuading skills
• Ability to self-motivate and to priorities’ effectively, in order to manage an extremely busy and complex agenda without compromising business needs.