Legal And Compliance Manager JHB - Johannesburg - Edge Executive Search

Description

Group Legal and Compliance Manager

The Group Legal and Compliance Manager will oversee legal matters and compliance initiatives across all departments within the organisation. This role involves ensuring that the company complies with all relevant laws and regulations, as well as advising on commercial agreements and contracts.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Legal-Commercial: Provide legal advice to GMs across the group pertaining to interpretation of existing contractual arrangements, drafting cancellation notices/addenda, ad hoc contract drafting and reviews for the Group (including negotiation of terms in most instances).
• Compliance: Run KYC processes with banks, ad hoc requests from auditors/providing walk-throughs on legal processes, applying for dispensation on behalf of specific departments and ensuring that required approval is received from the Board.
• Litigation: Run with specific litigation matters from inception (LOD drafting stage) and handing over to attorneys if required, monitoring progress on said matters until finalised.
• Cosec: Run with administrative elements of quarterly Group and subsidiary board meetings (prepping agenda, minutes, submissions, setting meetings up, etc., taking on cosec role in some instances), co-running LCC meetings across the Group, filing annual returns on CIPC for the group, ad hoc filing attendances on CIPC disclosures/deregistration of entities, fulfilling trust secretarial/administrative duties for Group Trusts (prepping addenda for trust deeds, advising trustees on interpretation of clauses in trust deed, attending to trustee changes at Masters Office).
• Projects | Big Matters: Contract register - working with IT team and units to create an online contract register/running project, major transactions within the group (Yellowwood + Refinance) - assisting as and when required (usually providing information to banks, prepping required resolutions, assisting with getting same approved by members of the Board within required timelines), internal control procedures updates - working with GMs + Ops teams to update specific ICPs for each entity (including filing same with relevant gambling boards, meeting compliance teams at the Boards and running with processes till completion/approval), commenting on various policies and SOPs within the group/ensuring that same comply with legal requirements, legal review of directives or updates to legislation that impact the Group (including engagements with CA SA/attorneys).
• Administrative: Weekly/daily review and distribution of Government and Provincial Gazette Notices relevant to the industry, raising of purchase orders for monthly invoicing from the attorneys and other suppliers, attend to legal and compliance filing, attend to all subpoenas received, ensuring the requested information is provided, assist with auditors' queries, attend to queries and calls from across the group on various matters, review of daily surveillance reports and report all potential litigious matters to the insurers, notify the insurers of any impairments and/or scheduled maintenance for the group.
• Credit Applications: Review group credit applications, negotiate terms on group credit applications.
• Agreements: Review and drafting of agreements for the group, these include SLAs, EDs, SDs, Barter, Entertainment agreements, etc., negotiate terms of such agreements internally and externally until finalised, ensure that all paperwork such as motivations, etc. are signed off.
• Litigation: Reporting of all potential group litigious matters to the insurers, be it public liability, criminal or debtors, instruct and brief attorneys on such litigious matters, attend to in-house investigations to assist attorneys and/or insurers, draft repudiation letters, draft full and final settlement letters, liaising with guests, provide guidance and opinions to the group on litigious matters, compiling of the quarterly litigation schedule.
• Intellectual Property: Ensuring that all group trademarks are renewed timeously, run searches for any potential infringements, apply for any new trademarks, instruct and work hand in hand with the IP attorneys in order to ensure that any infringements are attended to.
• Debtors: Attend to debtors throughout the month for the group (all administrative requirements), drafting and sending out of LODs to all debtors for the group, attending to full and final settlement letters as well as AODs and the negotiations thereof, compile the monthly debtors schedules for the group and distribute same to the various units, attend monthly debtors meeting and provide updates on progress re debtors, list debtors on ITC, instruct debt recovery agents as well as provide support throughout the month to assist with collection of debt, instruct the attorneys as well as provide support to assist with the collection of debt, preparing debt write-offs and ensuring same is signed off by the relevant parties and removed from the monthly schedules.
• Tenants and Lease Agreements: Drafting of lease agreements as well as assist with negotiations, ensure that bank guarantees are obtained and up to date, drafting of Mutual Termination Agreements, assist with collecting outstanding rental, work with H&S and Finance in order to ensure that Tenants are compliant.
• Liquor Licenses: Working close with the liquor licensing agent to ensure that all group liquor licenses are renewed and paid for timeously, attend to all group queries re liquor licenses, attend to the appointment of Liquor License Managers across the group, attend to the applications for occasional liquor licenses for once-off events.
• FICA: Chair FICA meetings, report all STR transactions as well as stained and counterfeit notes on the FIC website as discussed in the FICA Committee meeting, drafting of FICA Committee meeting minutes, distribution thereof as well as sign off.
• Compliance: Drafting and submitting of all gaming requests for approval to the GGB (Surveillance changes, tables and slots promos and changes as well as all promotional events for Marketing and Entertainment), setting up of quarterly compliance committee meetings as well as compiling of the pack and minute-taking of these meetings, receiving guest complaints lodged, investigating same and providing a response back, attending to license applications and renewals of Directors and Units, assist with compliance and company secretarial administration duties, to ensure the group is compliant with the FIC ACT, ensuring compliance with the ACT and as changes take place making sure we comply by updating accordingly and getting approval from the Board, updating and ensuring every AMLCO knows their responsibilities for each unit, PEP/PIP (Group) - Daily screening and making sure all positive matches are authorized and records kept, UN/TFS screening (Group) - Daily and live screening ensuring we comply with the ACT, excessive cash transactions (Group excluding BOTS + PalaceBet) (100K +) investigating all customers buying in for all amounts exceeding R100,000.00 for a Gaming Day (avg per month 174 investigations), CTR reporting (Group excluding BOTS and PalaceBet) - Ensuring all transactions (50k +) get reported to FIC within 72h, checking for duplications, missed, rejected, and valid validations, correcting all as set out in Directive 3, irregular behaviour (Group excluding BOTS and PalaceBet) - To monitor and check all customers with a jump in play, customer risk assessment (Group) - All customers must be risk assessed based on our risk Matrix, SEC FIC 27,32 - Sars 46 and Crime prevention 205 (Emperors only) - To comply with the requested and to respond in the set timeline given, enhance/due diligence (Group) - Ensuring all files, High-risk or politically exposed customers' files get reviewed annually, staff risk assessment (Group) - All staff must be risk assessed by our risk Matrix, staff screening UN/TFS (Group) - Screening of all staff against the lists as per the ACT, cash desk (Group) - All new accounts and tenders added to the system - supporting group in no balance and system errors, kyc (Group) - Updating customer application forms and ensuring our gaming and AML systems updated the correct information as required by the ACT, banned players (Group) - Second check on all banned players using the casino facilities, anonymous players (Group) - Tracking all anonymous players (reports and updating records), system testing (Group) Avanti and CRS FIC tool - we test the system regularly to ensure compliance - we also have the system audited by internal audit once a year to ensure compliance, record keeping (Emperors only) - Ensuring all records are kept, maintained in the prescribed manner, training - once the FIC ACT changes, we ensure that the RMCP is updated, distributed to the group and the training system is updated to the latest version, the training department will ensure the physical training takes place, maintaining and updating of AML as required by the ACT.
• Predictable Work: Oversee the above, anticipate issues and resolve proactively, unplug bottlenecks in processes when they happen regardless of the cause, quarterly work around Group board meeting prep – quarterly corporate governance report informed by the work plan, assist with sub-co board meeting prep where there are capacity challenges, stay comfortably familiar with all litigation matters including providing feedback in the relevant management or board meetings, legal review and oversight on all transaction/special project matters, handle complex customer complaints, quarterly compliance matters, manage law firm performance and billing, manage gambling board relationships quarterly, boxing – arrange attendees for stakeholder table, where dispensations are not permanent e.g. NW AFS and MP security/surveillance merger, submit annual renewal, director license renewal, usually involves filling forms for them, bee ownership element.