Senior Legal Counsel

Under the supervision of the Head of Commercial Legal Desk, the Senior Legal Counsel’s primary purpose is to handle litigious matters in trading and shipping. In addition, the successful candidate will provide legal support to business clients in non-contentious matters in relation to the Company’s trading and shipping businesses.

Key Responsibilities

• Advise on and handle contentious legal matters, including pre-litigation claims resolution, and litigation and arbitration proceedings in relation to trading, storage, and transportation activities of the Group. This requires providing solid advice on litigation strategy, keeping detailed claims and litigation files, and coordinating tasks between the relevant Group departments.
• Provide legal support to the businesses of the group on non-contentious legal matters mainly in respect of their trading, storage, and transportation activities. This entails among other things, the preparation, review, and negotiation of sales and purchase agreements, general terms and conditions, freight forwarding agreements, charterparties, agency agreements, and other legal documents, and the giving of accurate, timely, and pragmatic advice, for example in respect of indemnities, liability, quantity and quality issues, nomination and laytime, insurance, demurrage, licenses, etc. Be a first point of contact for the Contract Administration desk, Operations desk, Chartering desk, and Trading in relation to trading and shipping related legal questions.
• Ensure and promote appropriate mitigation of legal risks within the group: 1) identify, raise awareness and propose solutions to address key legal issues and risks in relation to trading, storage, and transportation activities, and 2) follow-up, inform on and propose action upon relevant changes in applicable laws and regulations.
• Safeguard the interest of the group by acting as a gatekeeper to ensure compliance with relevant procedures and controls.
• Use of external lawyers (assess the needs for using external lawyers, maintain external lawyers network, negotiate and control fees, conduct legal tenders, etc.).
• Ad-hoc reporting to Management, external auditors, and other Group companies.
• Provide training on relevant legal topics to the relevant departments.

Qualifications & Skills

• Master’s Degree in Commercial Law, International Trade Law, or Shipping Law. Preferably English law qualified.
• Minimum 5 years of post-qualification (in UK) experience handling shipping and trading cases in private practice.
• Expertise in litigation/claims, contracts, and other legal matters related to the trading and shipping business.
• Good understanding of physical oil trading business, including but not limited to shipping, insurance, and trade finance.
• Assertive and combative; remains steadfast in an adversarial or litigious environment.
• Ability to be persuasive and relentless in reinforcing the best interests of the company.
• Pragmatism & commercial mindset, strong organizational skills, attention to details.
• Excellent communication skills (oral & written), particularly when it comes to discussing legal matters.
• Excellent English communication skills (fluent/mother tongue); fluency in French is an advantage.

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