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Key Purpose of the Job:
This position will be to provide legal support to the ASIA Group and oversee the company’s overall compliance with law and regulations in Myanmar. The Legal Manager shall provide advice on a full range of legal issues, regulatory compliance, contracts, risk management, governance, complaints and general corporate matters and supervise the legal team located in Myanmar. The role is the Group's lead legal adviser and principal government-relations contact for the Myanmar business units.
Key Areas of Responsibility:
1. Supervision and team Management
- Supervise and support the legal team based in Myanmar in providing day to day contractual and compliance support to the business.
- Own the Myanmar queue of the Group legal ticketing system: triage, assign and track every Myanmar matter, and deliver against the Legal & Compliance SLA.
- Work with the Vietnam Legal Manager and Head Legal on group templates, policies and registers, so that Myanmar law and practice are reflected in group standards.
2. Legal and Contractual support:
- Advising the ASIA group on a wide range of commercial legal matters.
- Joining & advising the ASIA group legal project (Vietnam & Myanmar) per requested.
- Providing legal support and risk assessment to the various business functions, including finance, operations and HR.
- Drafting and negotiating a variety of legal documents and commercial contracts. This ranges from standard terms to bespoke agreements. Examples include terms and conditions, consultancy agreements, confidentiality agreements, service agreements, sale/purchase agreements, leases, franchise and license agreements, vendor and construction contracts, and student/customer contracts
- Own the customer contract templates for the Myanmar business units (student contracts, general terms and conditions, rules and regulations): review them periodically, advise sales teams and coordinate publication on websites.
- Support Group Finance on Myanmar banking and financing documents (facility agreements, security and guarantees), including negotiating key terms with local banks.
- Working closely with the businesses to ensure that appropriate risk management procedures are in place to cover contractual risk management.
- Support to handle legal requirements for M&A transaction when required.
- Review the impacts of changes in laws/regulations on our business and assist with responses to regulatory proposals as well as regulatory reports. Recommend and support departments to prepare and have suitable action to comply with changes of law provisions.
- Provide record research and legal documents to search if required.
- Run litigation before the Myanmar courts through local advocates: instruct counsel, review Burmese-language pleadings and filings, attend or oversee hearings, and lead settlement strategy with management.
- Managing specialist legal services provided by external firms on areas such as corporate, litigation, employment, tax, IP, property and environmental law, including local advocates in Myanmar, and propose and control the external counsel budget.
- Support HR and Finance on internal investigations, employee fraud and recovery actions.
3. Develop, roll out all local compliance policies and procedures:
- Establish and implement a compliance review system to ensure business activities are aligned with local laws and regulations.
- Create a comprehensive database of all the existing legal and compliance documentation in compliance with operations, finance and human resources.
- Work in collaboration with the internal legal counsel and business to ensure successful operations in compliance with applicable law and regulations.
- Prepare compliance reports, compliance risk assessment, and compliance action plan.
- Draft, review, and revise internal guidelines and regulations as required, including but not limited to internal regulation rules, employee handbooks, performance review, and disciplinary regulations.
- Deal with authorities to get final approval for implementation if required.
- Act as the single point of contact for government relations for the Myanmar business units, and build working relationships with the relevant ministries, city development committees and regulators.
- Build and maintain the Myanmar legal risk register, and report High/Critical risks and mitigation progress to Head Legal.
4. Manage legal documentation:
- Manage all the legal documents such as Ministry of Education school and center registrations and licenses, YCDC/MCDC business licenses and amusement-tax permits, fire safety certificates, DICA (MyCO) company registrations and filings, MIC permits, security licenses and other legal related documents including reviewing, updating all the changes with authorities, executing legal documents for new investment and/or new center, handling the inquiries, and inspection of authorities when needed. [JK1]
- Own the Myanmar entries in the Group license register and the renewal calendar: no lapsed licenses, renewals filed well ahead of expiry, and new licenses recorded within 5 working days. Obtain on time the inputs that filings depend on from HR and the business units (curriculum, teacher and student data, and board resolutions for fire-safety recommendations).
- [JK1]Licensing is the largest single part of the current Myanmar role, and the Vietnam text gives it little weight. The authority list has been replaced with the Myanmar equivalents.
- Prepare, update and review all power of attorney (POA), company seal and authorized-signatory records, letters communicated with key stakeholders and authorities, and other related documents to ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
5. Legal administration:
- Ensure the company’s periodical reporting according to all applicable rules and regulations.
- Prepare board and shareholder resolutions and director changes for the Myanmar entities, and maintain their statutory records and filings with DICA.
- Prepare legal documents for audit when required.
- Arrange, archive records of all legal documents.
- Handle disputes and/or litigations when necessary.
- Provide legal and compliance training for staff and management.
- Other tasks according to company legal & corporate affairs needs.
The above statements are a snapshot of the duties and responsibilities of the role and are not intended to be an exhaustive list.
Major challenge:
- Requires business acumen and ingenuity
- Requires very strong legal knowledge.
- Requires effective communication with the team and management level.
Requires sound judgment in Myanmar's operating environment (frequent regulatory change, banking and foreign-exchange constraints, and enforcement practice) and the ability to find workable solutions within it.