Senior Legal Counsel

Job Purpose Summary

Under thesupervision 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.

Primary Accountabilities

1) Advise on and handle contentious legal matters, incl. pre-litigation claims resolution, and litigation and arbitration proceedings in relation to trading, storage and transportation activities of the LITASCO SA group. This requires providing solid advice on litigation strategy, keeping detailed claims and litigation files, and coordinating tasks between the relevant LITASCO group departments.

2) Provide legal support to the businesses of the LITASCO SA 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 Contract Administration desk, the Operations desk, Chartering desk and Trading in relation to trading and shipping related legal questions.

3) Ensure and promote appropriate mitigation of legal risks within the LITASCO SA group:

a) identify, raise awareness and propose solutions to address key legal issues and risks in relation to trading, storage and transportation activities, and

b) follow-up, inform on and propose action upon relevant changes in applicable laws and regulations.

4) Safeguard the interest of the LITASCO SA group by acting as a gatekeeper to ensure compliance with relevant procedures and controls.

5) Participate to various tasks and projects involving Commercial Legal Desk, including but not limited to:

- 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 LUKOIL Group companies,

- Provision of training on relevant legal topics to relevant LITASCO SA group departments.

If you have:

• 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
• Able to work under pressure
• Strong negotiator
• Commercial mindset; acute awareness that the legal function contributes significantly to the Company’s PnL
• A strong personality and the ability to be persuasive and relentless in reinforcing the best interests of the company
• Strong integrity
  Strong organizational skills and time management
• Accurate, strong attention to details, conscientious
• Excellent communication skills (oral & written) particularly when it comes to discussing legal matters with internal clients and counterparties
• Pragmatism
• Excellent English communications skills (fluent – mother tongue); Fluency in French is an advantage

We offer competitive salaries and attractive benefits packages to ensure our team feels valued and supported.

We will be pleased to receive your full application on: jobs@litasco.com. Please mention the reference JOB UP - SLG – SB1224 in the subject of your email.