Legal and Compliance Manager at Trade Mark East Africa

Job summary

This role will ensure that the Council, Board of Directors, SLT and staff, receive appropriate, timely, and professional legal and compliance (including but not limited to tax) advice, that TMA (and all TMA subsidiaries) fully complies with all relevant statutory requirements, and that TMA’s interests are protected in litigation and legally binding agreements (with the added requirement to support TMA subsidiaries).

Roles and responsibilities

Legal (TMA and TMA subsidiaries):

• Provide or commission advice on different legal heads including but not limited to contract, employment, procurement, taxation whenever requested.
• Manage contracts and framework arrangements with all legal service providers.
• Quality assure all legal advice received from external service providers.
• Closely monitor all litigation involving TMA and ensure that TMA is properly represented and complies with Court orders at all times.
• Interact with staff and partners to identify potential disputes involving TMA.
• Identify all legal requirements which TMA should be complying with and develop checklists etc to ensure compliance (actual checks to be undertaken by compliance team or Internal Audit).
• Maintain an “Update of legal cases” report for quarterly submission to the Board.
• In liaison with the Company Secretary, ensure that all mandatory governance documents are appropriately filed in good time.
• Ensure that all legal documents drawn up or signed by TMA (including contracts, MOUs, Host country agreements, partner agreements and financing agreements) are legally sound and protect TMA’s interests.

Compliance (TMA and TMA subsidiaries):

• Ensure full regulatory and legal compliance in every TMA country of operation.
• Contributes to the drafting and negotiating of Host Country Agreements, Memoranda of Understanding, partner agreements and donor funding agreements to ensure adherence to TMA’s policies and procedures including the TMA Regulations, PCM Guidelines, etc.
• Safeguarding policies, PAR approval process, Results articulation process and Results Framework, procurement policies and procedures, among others.
• Continuous monitoring and support to remedy compliance gaps identified in procurement audits and reviews.
• Conduct procurement compliance reviews and liaise with the procurement unit to undertake updating/improvements of procurement policies and procedures, contracts, agreements, MOUs, Host country agreements to ensure that they are fit for purpose.
• Continuous review of contracts/contractual agreements to ensure that they comply with TMA Regulations, policies, and procedures, and follow donor requirements.
• Support the implementation of the compliance programme in TMA through undertaking compliance reviews, and preparing and presenting reports on the compliance with obligations as set out in laws, regulations, and agreements in the organisation including tax laws.
• Provides input into submissions to the Tender Committee to ensure documentation and requirements are complete before approval, proper reviews and due diligence have occurred, and creation of recommendation/matters of attention to TC and any required remediation plans.
• Regular update the Governance, Risk and Compliance director on procurement compliance progress and incidences of policy breaches and non-compliance.
• Participates in contract management activities including resolving supplier and partner non-performance and providing guidance/corrective action to ensure compliance with TMA policies and contractual obligations.
• Leads in resolving supplier complaints/disputes and where necessary sanctions procedures arising during tendering, contracting and contract implementation.
• Coordinating with procurement team, technical teams, partners and external parties including legal advisers, on contractual claims, disputes, claims against warranties and other contractual issues.
• Develops tools and processes to enhance the procurement compliance process in TMA.
• Keep abreast with the ever evolving regulatory, tax and legal landscape in TMA countries of operation to ensure proactive interventions are initiated to comply with the same.

Taxation (TMA and TMA subsidiaries):

• Assess, monitor and manage potential tax risks for TMA countries of operation
• Tax Advisory: Advise on a wide variety of day-to-day tax questions from internal stakeholders; assisting TMA teams on the correct tax treatment of transactions.
• Tax Compliance: Working closely with the Corporate Finance team, support the day – to- day operations for TMA countries to ensure effective and efficient tax compliance process.
• Provide advice on tax planning in the structuring and presentation of transactions to optimise the tax position.
• Advise on structuring of contracts and where required coordinate advice from tax advisors
• Tax Changes: Keep track of Tax amendments in the different countries of TMA operation as they impact TMA and oversee implementation.
• Tax Audits: Responding to inquiries from tax authorities and overseeing tax audits and tax health-checks.

Academic and professional qualifications

• Undergraduate law degree.
• Full membership of and certification by relevant professional body.

Work experience

• Undergraduate law degree ten years’ relevant experience (or eight years’ for Postgraduate degree holders) providing legal advisory services to a corporate organisation, ideally one working in trade or development in an international context. The areas of coverage should include contract, employment, taxation compliance and advisory as well as procurement.
• Three years of management experience.
• Able to work in a fast-paced environment, with ability to multi-task and adherence to changing priorities and deadlines.
• Experience in undertaking compliance activities for a development organisation.
• Experience of working in other legal jurisdictions in the region (sub-Saharan Africa) would be an advantage