Senior Legal Counsel

Time left to apply: End Date: December 18, 2024 (18 days left to apply) Job requisition ID: R-15969869

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group. Job Summary Our Absa Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB) Legal team has an exciting role for a Senior Legal Counsel in Transactional Banking. In this role, you will contribute to management by identifying and mitigating legal risks across the Transactional Banking business in South Africa and across the continent. You will be expected to provide accurate, expert and specialized legal advice and be involved in the structuring of transactions in line with relevant banking practices, procedures, and regulations. You will also be a key point of contact on a day-to-day basis for the business team, responsible for providing pro-active legal advice, support, and risk management. Job Description Accountability: Legal Risk Management

• Actively raise the profile of the legal function and improve on Legal Key Risks.
• Manage and create awareness by embedding legal policies and control requirements in all areas of the business.
• Provide appropriate challenge and be robust in the face of challenges.
• Build strong risk partnerships with colleagues in other functions (especially key control areas).
• Manage, evaluate, and prioritize tasks in accordance with business needs.
• Communicate and distill legal concepts to the business function, ensuring that lessons learned are communicated both within and outside the legal fraternity.
• Ensure effective and appropriate verbal and written communication of the legal policies to internal clients.
• Proactive monitoring of compliance of the legal risk control framework.
• Immediately report any breach of the legal risk control framework to the head of the department.
• Record legal risks on the legal risk reporting forms accurately and provide it to the head of the department.
• Act on legal risks notified in the legal risk reports by raising it with business stakeholders and addressing it as far as possible to sufficiently mitigate risk.
• Have knowledge of new regulatory requirements and provide comments to draft bills, regulatory documents, and regulations issued by any governmental department and/or regulatory body.
• Provide highly specialized legal advice and support to the dedicated area of support.

Accountability: Commercial

• Demonstrate strong analytical skills and solve complex problems creatively and effectively.
• Drive good cost control behavior, especially around external spend and consistently deliver against a broad range of competing targets.
• Manage external counsel and represent Absa on relevant industry forums and professional bodies where required.
• Add value in commercial as well as technical discussions, and provide training that is beneficial/informative to internal clients.

Accountability: Leadership

• Demonstrate strong relationship management skills with clients.
• Plan and manage projects and matters through to completion, including resourcing.
• Contribute to the development and implementation of team objectives and strategy and provide high-quality support to the business as required by interacting with different legal and business stakeholders.
• Work independently with minimal supervision and demonstrate the ability to supervise where appropriate.

Accountability: Technical Skills

• Assist in structuring, negotiating & drafting legal agreements and documentation relating to standard agreements, transactions, and new products.
• Help to develop working structures and best practice guides for use within the business.
• Address all probable risks by ensuring they are sufficiently addressed in legal agreements drafted.
• Consider, comment, negotiate, and give advice on documents/agreements for the business.
• Provide legal advice on transactions or deals to be done or transactions that have been concluded.
• Provide advice on legality, lawfulness, and enforceability of agreements and documents.
• Take principal responsibility for drafting and periodically reviewing standard terms or template documentation to deal with legal risk trends and opportunities to prevent recurrence and improve business performance and recoveries.

Education and Experience Required

• Law degree: B Proc or LLB.
• Admitted attorney or advocate in RSA or another similar jurisdiction.
• Preferred: Transactional banking and Commercial law experience.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Banking and finance experience would be of benefit.
• Relevant experience (at least 6 years) as an in-house legal counsel in a financial institution, other corporate, in a reputable law firm or at the Bar.
• General knowledge of bank regulations required.

Education Bachelor Honours Degree: Law, Military Science, and Security (Required) Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank. Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised. #J-18808-Ljbffr