Legal strategies
networking
Talking cooperation
How can our legal department be organized so that it
functions as one network worldwide, still encouraging
local initiatives and taking advantage of the special
opportunities and limits within the many jurisdictions
in which we work? This was one of the key strategie
issues addressed during the global legal conference in
Utrecht last month.
Leading considerations
Defining priorities
•R,
I What'sNewS
Says Cees Oosterholt of the legal and
tax department, 'banking transactions
Mw'e increasingly spanning multiple
^^egulatory and legal jurisdictions, in line
with the globalization of business net-
works. For instance, a customer might
want to initiate a deal in Japan, book it
in London and include features involving
orher jurisdictions as well. The challenge
is to stay on top of all the legal and
ethical implications, and to more
effectively network among ourselves to
both meet our cliënt requirements and
minimizing any potential risk.'
Moreover, given the increasingly complex
nature of many cross-border products such
as derivatives and structured finance,
important new questions include: how do
Conference participants: front row fltr - N. Renkens, G. Griesinger, D. Reisman,
G. Kelly, K. Oosterholt, P. Stol, R. Collins. Back row fltr - E. Hop, K. Versteeg, C. Hogg,
C. Kwant, L. Newbold, J. Low, P. Giglio, D. Schijf, A. Trayhurn, A. Balint,
W. Van Nierop, L. Freire, G. Bilbao, S. Bristow, and F. Hartadi
we allocate
in-house legal
resources
worldwide?
As we try to release valuable solvency
through netting, what are the global legal
repercussions in terms of documentation
and procedures? What standards should
guide our hiring of outside law firms - and
what rules apply to internal information
exchange? These and many other
important issues studded the agenda in
Utrecht, April 18-20.
The gathering drew our leading legal
professionals and a top-level cast from
management. It also rnarked the launch of
a new organizational model stressing
regionalization - for instance New York
will be responsible for the Americas - and
on creating a true global partnership with
strategie guidance through the legal and
tax department in Utrecht. Staff at the
department are being reorganized along
the global product managers model to
better address the needs of our clients in
corporate products, corporate advisory,
and global financial markets. Finally, it
was agreed that greater emphasis will be
placed on on-going staff training and
development, with the possibility of
temporary cross-border posting among
different jurisdictions being considered as
well. For more information please contact
Evelien Hop on tel. +.11 30 21614.S4.
^sp
The state of play in Rabobank
International's food and
agribusiness (F&A) activities in Europe,
the US and Australia were the main
themes of a meeting held in Utrecht on
April 29. This dedicated F&A day
offered a variety of relationship
management and product information,
with special focus on European market
core teams (MCTs). The opportunity to
network is one of the biggest attrac-
tions at meetings of this kind. With
relationship managers, product
specialists, risk managers, senior
management and support staff coming
in from all around the network
specially for the event, additional
abobankers also 'popped in' to find
out what was happening. The real
business, however, was the know-how
exchange that underpinned the main
program. According to Elenk Gentis,
one of our main problems is that high
solvency products are still very fashion-
able within RI. 'It's not that we don't
like lending,' he said, 'it is certainly a
core product, but we need more cross-
selling, more creative structures.' He
also pointed out that market penetra-
tion in European F&A is pretty low.
The only advantage to that, he remark-
ed dryly, is that with such low return
on solvency, it can only get better.
Addressing these and many of our other
ilis in Europe are the MCTs which have
been running since late last year,
established in five specific F&A areas.
Stefan Riphaus, speaking on food retail,
argued that our so-called F&A focus is
often little more than lip service. 'We
need to be F&A cliënt focused without
even thinking about it,' he said. Hints
on how we might improve this situation
came from both the US and Australia
(who along with Argentina, Spain and
Mexico maintain successful F&A focus)
through presentations by Bob Bucklin
and Ab Gilhaus respectively. According
to Bucklin, we often fail to work togeth-
er on servicing the customer. 'Too often,'
he said, 'we're fighting like junkyard
dogs over the income when we should
be out in the prairie as predators.' In his
view, North America has been successful
in building its F&A focus through the
establishment of dedicated teams. But it
also requires a cluster of factors,
including industry and product
knowledge to win customer intimacy.
