Legal Counsel & Company Secretary

Title              :      Legal Counsel & Company Secretary   

Department:       Legal and Compliance

Location      :       Navi Mumbai - India

Reports To :         disciplinary to the General Manager / functionally to the General Counsel AME & South Asia

Company Profile

Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing, and protecting in the building sector and motor vehicle industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 101 countries around the world and manufactures in over 300 factories. Its more than 25,000 employees generated annual sales of CHF 10.42 Billion in 2022.

Overview

Responsible for providing legal advice and negotiation support to Sika India, particularly sales and procurement as well as to all other functions. Handling litigation and other legal matters involving the company, such as conducting and/or managing all legal matters administered by legal  third party’ offices; reviewing and analyzing sales, procurement and settlement agreements, complaints or demand letters from legal counsels representing customers or other parties, including appearing before court and administrative tribunals; assisting in developing, modifying and implementing Sika group wide policies and procedures to conform to legal requirements whether in the Fiscal, Corporate, Commercial, Labor, Criminal, Environmental and Consumer Rights area and support at property law. Responsible for handling compliance matters, including conducting investigations; conducting employee trainings on legal and compliance risks.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Oversees the day-to-day Legal activity (daily legal tasks including contract review, corporate governance, compliance, legal research, advice, employment).
• Advises the management on different matters of a local nature (companies’ law, corporate restructuring, foreign investment law, labor law, etc) and legal risks associated with potential business deals.
• Manage litigations of civil, labor, fiscal, environmental, criminal and consumer rights areas. Follow up on procedures and filings before local courts; handling administrative claims and disputes.
• Elaborate and administrate annual provisions to support the litigations processes ongoing.
• Provide reports with the tracking of processes actions.
• Provide pragmatic and solution-oriented negotiation support and legal advice and drafting all legal agreements and documentation related to civil, fiscal and labor areas.
• Pro-active legal and compliance risks management to Sika India management team.
• Inform and work with functional hierarchy on all material legal and compliance matters.
• Manage the flow of documents, information and data related to legal defenses.
• Elaborate and analyze all kinds of agreements, as well as their respective documentation.
• Responsible for all Indian regulatory certifications.
• Support the trademark and patent area.
• Assist the company in the application of safety and occupational health legislation.
• Providing advice, and drafting all legal agreements and commercial contracts, land, building and housing leases, purchase agreements, distribution agreements, financing and loan documentation and other legal documentation relating to alliances and acquisitions.
• Tracking legislation, analyzing trends and assessing future legal trends.
• Counseling on personnel and employment, labor and related issues.
• Selecting and managing outside counsel, retained to represent or assist the company in India and coordinating the activities of company’s attorneys, legal assistants and other personnel working with the retained counsel. Developing and / or delivering training on legal topics as appropriate for company’s employees in the country and as requested by functional manager from time to time. Conducting training sessions on Anti-Corruption / Anti-Trust, contractual guidelines and more generally, ensuring compliance of contracts and activities with applicable laws and regulations in force.
• Follow the orientations received in the trainings offered by the company.
• Inform your direct hierarchic superior, indicate risk situations and present suggestions to improve the work conditions and the occurrences that, at your discretion, may imply in risk to the workers’ health.
• Comply with and apply the recommendations as to accident preventions and diseases resulting from the work in the work environment.
• The implementation of the Corporate Governance principles and guidelines and ensuring they are respected at all times (organizational documents, GM and Board nominations, limitation of powers, delegations of powers and matrix of authority, etc).
• Support on Human Resources-related matters, including labor disputes, employment contracts, advice on labor law provisions.

Qualifications/Experience:

5 to 10 years, bachelor’s degree in law (Corporate/ labor certification (Indian Attorney’s Association) and member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Competencies:

Functional

• Self-starter and a team player with an ability to function in a matrix organization; practical, mature and value driven in his/her approach to law, excellent communication skills, both in oral and written Hindi and English idioms.

Behavioural

• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Open and direct communicator across departments, regions, and cultures.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Personality matched to perform the activities in coordination with various
• departments within and outside the organization.
• Good in integrity and ethical behaviour.