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The six sets of case studies showcased here feature examples of the most innovative work undertaken by in-house teams for their businesses.

All of the case studies were researched, compiled and ranked by RSGI. “Winner” indicates that the organisation won an FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific award for 2023.


Commercial and strategic partners

Winner: Recruit
Originality: 7; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 25
After Japanese human resources company Recruit discovered a data breach at a subsidiary in 2019, its legal team has developed a deep expertise in data privacy, to minimise the chances of another similar incident. Among its 22 data privacy experts are engineering and product development specialists, as well as 10 lawyers.

The team ensures the business’s new or updated products are privacy compliant — a process that has been helped by having 1,800 privacy policies merged into a single document and enabling amendments to be automatically updated across 300 different product lines.

Standout

Telstra
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23

Some 70 per cent of the lawyers at the Australian telecoms company have volunteered to comply with three general standards for written advice to the rest of the business.

It should be understandable for anyone with a reading age of 13; sentences should be no more than 15 words; and the core of the advice should be readable on a mobile phone without having to scroll.

Commended

Lazada
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The legal team at the south-east Asian ecommerce business designed and implemented an intellectual property asset management portal. Intangible assets, such as trademarks, are highly valuable to the business, which uses this automated system to track and enforce its IP.

SoftBank
O: 8; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 22
The in-house legal team led negotiations on the $8.5bn asset-backed financing secured against SoftBank’s majority stake in chipmaker Arm. The loan is unusually large for a financing of this kind and required a wide range of teams to work closely with each other.

Asian Development Bank
O: 6 L: 7 I: 7; Total: 20
The legal team at the bank has simplified its corporate finance and loan documentation, reducing negotiation time and legal costs. The change is helping the bank to win more private sector work.

Li & Fung
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
When the Hong Kong supply chain group sold its logistics arm, LF Logistics, to container shipping company Maersk in 2022, the in-house team took a central role by acting as a connector between external parties and across Li & Fung’s operations in 14 countries. The role also included securing antitrust approval in each jurisdiction.

UBS
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
The legal team at the bank advised on the sale of UBS and Mitsubishi’s joint venture, Mitsubishi Corp-UBS Realty, to global investment fund KKR for $2bn. UBS’s legal team led negotiations directly with KKR, and designed measures to mitigate any risks arising from the increased market volatility caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.


New products and services

Winner: UBS
Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 24
In collaboration with law firm Simmons & Simmons, the bank’s lawyers have helped develop an app, called Circle One, that allows UBS clients to access its advisers, mobile banking services, and shared expertise. After launching the app in Singapore and Hong Kong, the bank plans to roll it out globally this year. Lawyers had to interpret conflicting regulations in each territory to ensure that this new way of engaging with clients was legally compliant.

Standout

FedEx Express
O: 7 L: 8 I: 8; Total: 23
The fast-transportation and delivery business has teamed up with ecommerce platforms such as eBay to allow sellers on these online marketplaces access to cheaper shipping rates through FedEx Express. More than 17 have signed up so far. The lawyers at FedEx Express joined forces with other parts of the business in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa to enable buyers to manage their deliveries through messaging service WhatsApp.

Commended

DBS Bank
O: 7; L: 9; I: 6; Total: 22

The legal team has been put in charge of the bank’s response to the metaverse. Results so far include a white paper, and the launch of DBS Betterworld, a metaverse space dedicated to the theme of environmental, social and governance.

China International Capital Corporation
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21

The legal team at the part state-owned investment bank worked with the business to design and launch a digital platform that connects Chinese start-ups to Chinese law firms for more affordable legal advice.

MTR Corporation
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The legal team at the transportation business advised on the set-up and design of its start-up incubator, Engine 2. It also plays a prominent role in helping the organisation to decide which companies it should invest in.


Agile legal teams

Winner: Telstra
Originality: 8; Leadership: 8; Impact: 8; Total: 24
The in-house legal team at the telecoms company has joined the rest of the business in adopting a more agile operational structure, by changing the team’s intake and management of work. Members of the team are allocated to “missions” — areas of work that are strategically important to Telstra — which range from mobile phones to contract work and regulatory affairs. The team works more flexibly according to the requirements of the missions, and can easily gauge where and when the demands on staff will arise.

Standout

Boston Consulting Group
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The legal team in the professional services firm’s Asia-Pacific office is using adaptable working methods to respond to emerging legal risks or trends in areas such as generative AI and data privacy. “Focus squads” are tasked with quickly developing legal expertise in these subjects, while “proxy squads” then share this information with the wider legal team.

DBS Bank
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The legal and compliance team put new structures in place to handle issues relating to sustainability, intellectual property and new business initiatives. There is now a dedicated team for intellectual property portfolio management and two teams that are structured to be more agile to support new business initiatives requiring expertise from across the bank. A significant portion of the legal and compliance team contributes to cross-disciplinary initiatives, such as efforts on sustainability.

Commended

Westpac
O: 6; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 22
The legal team at the Australian bank has set up groups of expertise within its legal team around topics of increasing importance to the bank — including digital assets, environmental, social and governance matters, and data privacy. The team also disseminates its knowledge to the wider business.


Energy transition

Winner: BHP
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 7; Total: 24
As the first miner in Australia to have a “climate transition action plan” voted through by shareholders in November 2021, BHP’s legal team set about putting it into effect.

This included helping the business to design an ambitious but realistic strategy on environmental, social and governance (ESG) questions. Lawyers support the plan with strategies such as tailoring due diligence on potential Australian carbon offset projects for their effectiveness and social impact.

Standout

Lazada
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
The ecommerce business worked with electric vehicle maker Smoot Motor Indonesia to design and launch a fleet of electric motorcycles for delivery drivers in Indonesia. The joint project made design improvements allowing batteries in the e-scooters to be changed quickly. The legal team structured the contractual framework and negotiated how the intellectual property would be shared. Lazada has run a similar project in Vietnam to promote the use of e-scooters for delivery.

Qantas
O: 8; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 23
The Australian airline’s legal team developed the agreement for its Sustainable Aviation Fuel Coalition, a corporate membership programme set up in 2022.

The scheme encourages members to cut net carbon emissions by contributing to the cost of sustainable fuel instead of using carbon credits. Qantas has promised that 10 per cent of its overall fuel mix will comprise sustainable aviation fuel by 2030.

Asian Development Bank
O: 8; L: 9; I: 6; Total: 23
The bank’s legal team designed a replicable financial mechanism that uses a mix of public and private finance to speed up the closure and replacement of coal-fired power plants with clean power capacity. The bank is now seeking private-investor backing to develop beyond the pilot stage.

Commended

Equinor
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
The Norwegian energy group’s South Korean legal team is helping the business to develop and invest in floating and fixed offshore wind farms in the country, where rules and regulations are changing rapidly.


Digital legal departments

Winner: DBS Bank
Originality: 9; Leadership: 9; Impact: 7; Total: 25
The legal and compliance team at Singapore’s biggest bank works proactively with regulators, law enforcement and other banks to tackle the growing problem of online scams. Legal and compliance staff worked with the digital team to develop tools that use artificial intelligence to predict attempts at fraud and run pre-transaction checks on suspicious payments. DBS has helped other banks improve fraud detection systems by using AI.

Standout

Westpac
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
The Australian bank’s legal team last year launched a digital hub containing information that ranges from the bank’s legal position on routine questions to learning and development courses. These resources have helped to cut the administrative burden on the team and allow staff in the wider business to request legal advice and access self-service options more easily.

Commended

Astro
O: 6; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 22
The legal team at the Malaysian satellite television company collaborated with a flexible legal resourcing business and a legal tech consultancy to digitise its operations. As well as improving efficiency, the project has increased employee engagement in the team.

Yum China
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The legal team at the fast food company, which owns the KFC and Pizza Hut brands in China, has developed tools to analyse the business’s Chinese-language contracts and other materials, for which most off-the-shelf legal tech is inadequate. These include an AI-enabled review platform for all marketing content.

Gilead Sciences
O: 6; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 21
The South Korean legal team at the US-based pharma group increased self-service on legal issues in the rest of the business. Review of promotional and non promotional material, for instance, is now managed outside the streamlined team, saving up to three hours of lawyer time a day.

Hillhouse Investment
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The private equity firm’s legal team worked with software developers to create an online portal combining several applications to help on day-to-day work, such as non-disclosure agreements, deal management,
e-billing, and compliance.

Telstra
O: 7; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 21
The legal team at the Australian telecoms business set up a portal to help members collate information collaboratively ahead of board meetings. It ensures there is a clear record of issues raised, including if they have been highlighted before.

Abdul Latif Jameel
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
The head of legal at the diversified Saudi-based company, Andy Soh, is encouraging his team of 60-plus lawyers to develop tools that will benefit the entire team, such as playbooks for drawing up contracts. Each team member is asked to devote 15 per cent of their time to such projects.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia
O: 6; L: 7; I: 7; Total: 20
The bank’s legal team has made several tech improvements in pursuit of its data strategy, including the adoption of a legal services procurement platform and a document verification tool, as well as moving its knowledge management platform to the cloud.


Risk management

Winner: Johnson & Johnson
Originality: 8; Leadership: 9; Impact: 9; Total: 26
The litigation team in Asia-Pacific designed a digital system for the pharmaceutical business to improve its management of criminal and regulatory risks, in the region.

The system assesses the dangers and the business lines involved. This resource allows the team to plot trends in risks visually and plan more effective responses in communications with the wider business. The company is now considering a global rollout.

Standout

Intuitive Surgical
O: 7; L: 8; I: 8; Total: 23
In collaboration with law firm Yulchon, the South Korean legal team at the international healthcare and medical devices business has created a new compliance framework and record management system.

Instead of adopting a single global framework, which did not work for the South Korean team, it has developed a “two-tier system” that takes account of local nuances in the country but allows it to report to the global team in the US without duplicating work that was previously involved.

Commended

Lazada
O: 7; L: 8; I: 7; Total: 22
The legal team designed and launched a risk review tool so that the ecommerce company can undertake corporate social responsibility activities with partner organisations while minimising the need for specific signoffs by lawyers.

Agoda
O: 7; L: 8; I: 6; Total: 21
The online travel agency’s legal team developed a framework to anticipate how developments in artificial intelligence might potentially result in differing regulatory obligations across the world.

The lawyers took inspiration from the team’s approach to planning compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regime when they were thinking through the future implications of artificial intelligence.

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