Legal Counsel at NBC

NBC is the oldest serving bank in Tanzania with over five decades of experience. We offer a range of retail, business, corporate and investment banking, wealth management products and services.

The Legal Counsel is responsible for provision of legal services to the National Bank of Commerce Limited (“NBC/the bank”) and its investments, including areas such as transactional support, litigation management, commercial contract management, legal risk management, governance, secretarial services, and general legal advice, and provides dedicated business-aligned support to all departments and unites of the bank.
To provide legal support and assistance to NBC’s Head of Legal and in identifying and managing legal risk in NBC and its investments liaising directly with the business as appropriate.
Partner closely with the business as a trusted Legal advisor, focusing on identifying and mitigating legal risks through commercially balanced, pragmatic, timely, and accurate legal advice

Job Description​

Accountability:  Legal Risk Management (50%)

Assist Head of Legal in:

• Supporting the business in the long-term growth by providing pragmatic and effective advice to manage legal risk across the business and assist in the design and implementation of procedures to manage this risk at an appropriate level.
• Ensuring that all aspects of legal risk are identified covered and controlled in the implementation of new projects, systems, procedures and products.
• Ensure the Legal risks are managed and mitigated and send periodic reports to Head of Legal and Management Committees.
• Implement effective Legal risk control frameworks and processes in accordance with the Legal, Regulatory and NBC Governance requirements/standards.
• Developing and delivering strategic legal risk management initiatives.
• Ensuring best practices are adopted and guidelines complied with, and that all activities comply with applicable laws, rules and regulations.
• Ensuring that changes and developments in legislation, regulations, guidelines and practices affecting the markets in which the business operates are analysed, evaluated and reported as required.
• Invest in institutional knowledge and training capabilities to upskill business colleagues and increase awareness of legal and regulatory requirements.
• Create, Review and Update standard documentation in line with the Legal Risk Management Policy to ensure legal risk is adequately managed.
• Manage relationships with external lawyers and monitor their performance and costs using best supplier management practices
• Support management of contracts and drafting emanating from the Procurement/Sourcing Team and lead on the use of standard/non-standard templates
• Manage the Key Risk Indicators.
• Drive the full contract lifecycle standardization of templates, review, drafting and negotiation through to execution and renewal. Also, prepare and manage commercial agreements (e.g., commercial, leases, vendor contracts).
• Embed Legal Policies within the business by creating awareness through training, regular circulars as a champion for the Legal Risk Management Policy and Standard.

Accountability:  Compliance & Risk Control (5%)

• Ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework, internal NBC policies and Policy Standards and strong knowledge of legal risk management and controls
• Maintain a satisfactory control environment.
• Review the risk and Legal profiles of the business unit on a regular basis and provide consultative support to the Head of Legal and Management on changes that are required to rebalance risk and reward where required.

Accountability:  Management & financial information (5%)

Assist the Head of Legal in:

• Identifying and meeting management information requirements for the measurement of legal risk exposure, performance (both of internal and external legal resources) and productivity.
• Managing and controlling external legal resources in terms of cost and performance. Act as liaison between banking personnel and external legal advisors as appropriate.

• Managing the legal budgets for the business.
• Streamline and automate Legal processes using digital tools and technologies to improve efficiency and mitigate risks.

Accountability:  Service Management (30%)

• Contributing to the development of the business strategy by providing innovative solutions to legal risk management.
• Liaising with various Business Heads as a legal point of contact.
• Develop and roll out litigation risk management and strategy in line with policy.
• Addressing and managing resolution of Legal queries arising from the business.
• Identify opportunities to increase efficiency by creating standardized legal templates and legal documents that are tailored to the specific needs of the business.

Accountability: Team Leadership (10%)

Assist the Head of Legal to

• Provide education, training, and support to the businesses on relevant legal risk issues and developments as appropriate.
• Ensure an up to date and relevant knowledge of principal areas of law and practice in Tanzania.
• Assisting Head of Legal in managing output from connected services such as Securities and Documents Unit, Recoveries and Peoples function.
• Actively engage with business to understand their objectives, challenges, and risks.

Continue building a Purpose-led, Values-driven, Outperformance culture in Legal to drive employee engagement and performance

Education and Experience Required

• Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB) from a recognized university
• Advocate of the High Court of Tanzania and other subordinates courts
• 8 years Post Qualification Experience in legal risk management in the banking and finance services or from a law firm specializing in banking/financial services .

Knowledge & Skills:

• Effective communication in written and spoken English – Ability to communicate effectively and in an impactful manner.
• Analytical, problem-solving skills with the ability to develop imaginative solutions – Having a pragmatic approach in balancing business needs vis-a-vis mitigation of legal risks by offering practical solutions with a strong commercial focus.
• Stakeholder management and networking skills – Develops constructive and collegiate professional relationships across the business in providing support to internal client base and build relationships with external advisors (legal and non-legal).
• Experience in banking and commercial law
• Knowledge and understanding of banking and financial business strategy, business, markets and products.
• Strong technical legal ability.
• Strategic planning and negotiation skills
• Project and resource management

Qualifications

Bachelor Honours Degree – Law, Digital familiarity (Meets some of the requirements and would need further development), Ethics and values (Meets all of the requirements), Experience in a similar environment at senior management level, Legal Advisory and Interpretation (Meets all of the requirements), Openness to change (Meets some of the requirements and would need further development), Reasoning (Meets all of the requirements)

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Legal Counsel CIB & BB at NBC

 NBC is the oldest serving bank in Tanzania with over five decades of experience. We offer a range of retail, business, corporate and investment banking, wealth management products and services.

Job Summary

The job holder is responsible for providing support to the Head of Legal (NBC) in the provision of legal advice to Business Units in NBC with a particular focus on Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) and Business Banking (BB). This role also involves identifying and managing legal risks across NBC

Job Description​

• Understand and articulate the strategy/goals for the team and broader department
• Understand needs of Business Unit and provide legal advice and/or opinion, research and support to business in area of specialisation to enable the provision of legal risk management and identify which legal risks are commercial in nature
• Ensure that legal advice and/or opinions are current and correct by remaining up to date with the latest legal developments
• Provide legal advice on a wide range of corporate and investment banking solutions, products and services, including Debt and Capital markets, trade finance, project finance, syndicated lending, structured finance, derivatives and securitization.
• Provide tailored, commercial advice and recommendations on legality, the lawfulness and enforceability of agreements and documents as well as concisely explaining legal risks, concepts and clauses to Business Units.·
• Have a good understanding of relevant products and services across NBC and Group and assist in structuring, negotiating and drafting legal agreements and documentation·
• Provide legal support to Business Units at meetings with other banks and/or clients and assist them to negotiate the terms of legal agreements, security documents and other documents especially where deadlocks are reached in negotiations between the bank other banks and/or clients·
• Ensure that legal agreements, security documents and other documents contain adequate provisions to manage and mitigate legal risks
• Oversee perfection and registration of security interests in Tanzania and other jurisdictions (if required) and provide or secure legal opinions on collateral enforceability and perfection compliance.·
• Ensure effective and appropriate verbal and written communication of the legal risk control framework policies to Business Units·
• Monitor compliance of the legal risk control framework and immediately report any breach of the legal risk control framework to the Head of Legal & Company Secretariat and accurately record legal risks on the legal risk reporting forms·
• Act on legal risks notified in the legal risk reports to ensure the successful mitigation of the risks·
• Provide legal input on draft bills, regulatory documents and regulations issued by governmental departments and/or regulatory body·
• Manage any litigation or claims by or against the bank including negotiating settlement agreements in relation to relevant Business Units
• Exercise sound risk judgement based on practice, previous experience and ensure that all activities and duties are carried out in full compliance with regulatory requirements, Enterprise-Wide Risk Management Framework and internal Policies and Policy Standards·
• Act as lead legal support on complex and high-value CIB and BB transactions.·
• Liaise with external counsel and counterparties’ legal teams to ensure timely and legally compliant execution of transactions.
• Provide training to Business Units on legal documentation, developments and issues including the production of legal bulletins and seminars.
• Ensure that any changes to the legal or regulatory environment are correctly reflected in the documents contained in the Standard Legal Documents Databases NBC and in all other agreements drafted

Required Qualification and Experience:

At least 7 years’ post qualifying experience as an in-house legal counsel in a financial institution or at least 7 years working experience in a reputable law firm.

·         Extensive knowledge of Banking and finance law

·         Extensive knowledge of corporate lending transactions.

·         Extensive knowledge of Commercial law

·         Extensive knowledge of law of Contracts

·         Extensive knowledge of Regulatory framework

·         Experience in cross border transactions

·         Commercial acumen with the ability to balance legal risk and business objectives.

·         Ability to work under pressure and manage multiple complex transactions simultaneously

·         High level of professionalism, integrity, and judgment.

·         Ability to interpret and apply credit analysis and decisions.

Preferred

·       Qualified Lawyer – Advocate of High Court of Tanzania or admitted in another recognized jurisdiction

·              Expert working knowledge of finance and security documentation, both domestic and cross-border

·              Project finance (including public private partnerships)

·              Corporate and structured finance

·              Good knowledge of Property law

·              Good knowledge of Public Sector Finance

·              Good knowledge of Trade (import and export) laws

·              Good knowledge of mergers and acquisition

·              Good knowledge of competition law

Qualifications

Bachelor Honours Degree – Law, Digital familiarity (Meets some of the requirements and would need further development), Ethics and values (Meets all of the requirements), Legal Advisory and Interpretation (Meets all of the requirements), Openness to change (Meets some of the requirements and would need further development), Reasoning (Meets all of the requirements), senior legal leadership experience, preferably in financial services

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