R HIGHLY NEGOTIABLE PLUS ANNUAL PERFORMANCE BONUS
Our client is a wealth management business that has been in existence since 1998 with offices in the United Kingdom and South Africa, although the company’s main operating business is located in London. The company provides clients with personal service in relation to their offshore wealth, focusses on long-term success and builds relationships based on trust. They are proud of its ability to create successful partnerships by doing business in a way that best suits its clients. It offers wealth management, investment management and bespoke solutions tailored to individual client needs, including financial planning and mainly serves high net worth clients and other financial services firms. They merged with a South African group in October 2024. They are a South African entrepreneurial wealth and asset management firm that emphasises adaptability in a changing market. They provide a broad range of investment solutions to individuals and institutions. They also offer wealth management, investment management and bespoke solutions tailored to individual client needs, including financial planning.
They now seek an in-house lawyer to join their team. You will be happy in this business – they are successful, professional and friendly. It’s a lovely place to work!
JOB DESCRIPTION WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO:
- You will be required to provide general support to the legal, compliance and HR functions within the company groups with a broad range of duties, with a particular focus on legal issues in SA and in relation to work being undertaken for the business units that the legal department supports in the UK and SA and ad hoc projects being undertaken;
- You will be responsible for generally assisting other members of the legal team with corporate legal work in SA and the UK, compliance and regulatory matters in SA, human resources in SA, transactional work, company secretarial work mainly in SA and generally assisting with all such legal and other tasks (commensurate with your status) as you may reasonably be requested to do;
- You will be responsible for maintaining company registers, drafting company resolutions, minutes and other corporate governance documents (SA and BVI) and undertaking registrar filings as required;
- You will be responsible for managing and ensuring compliance with data protection regulations particularly with POPIA, including handling data privacy inquiries, data breaches, requests for access to personal information, maintaining secure records and assisting with the implementation of data protection policies and procedures;
- You will be responsible for reviewing, negotiating and drafting agreements with service providers, wrapper / endowment providers, NDAs and other commercial contracts;
- You will be responsible for assisting with the preparation of agreements for new clients, mainly for financial intermediary arrangements in SA, new deals with existing clients or introducers. This may take the form of supporting sales, relationship and client service managers in their commercial negotiations or directly engaging with clients or their legal advisors to resolve technical issues;
- You will be responsible for reviewing, maintaining and updating the company policies and procedures to ensure they remain compliant with applicable legal and regulatory requirements and reflect changes in law, regulation and best practice;
- You will be responsible for suggesting changes to template documents to keep them up to date;
- You will be responsible for carrying out such legal research as may be required;
- You will be responsible for keeping up to date with the legal and regulatory environment in SA and providing regular summaries of developments relevant to the business;
- You will be responsible for supporting the HR function by preparing contracts for SA employees, assisting in performance reviews, terminations and related tasks, conducting legal inductions for new joiners in SA and assisting with updates to staff handbook and other communications with staff;
- You will be responsible for dealing with ad hoc legal queries from the business;
- You will be responsible for assisting with responses to KYC / RFI requests and audit support for the business and assisting with other ad hoc administrative tasks;
- You will be responsible for carrying out all such other functions and giving such advice and / or assistance as the company and / or any other company in the company’s group of companies may reasonably require, from time to time and as the board may require including such functions as would normally be provided by an attorney.
CORE COMPETENCIES REQUIRED, BUT NOT LIMITED TO:
- You are hard working;
- You have the ability to work independently and as part of a team;
- You have a keen eye for detail;
- You have strong time management skills;
- You have excellent communication (verbal and written) skills in English;
- You have the capability to prioritise tasks in order to meet deadlines.
CORE QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:
- You are an admitted attorney with a minimum of 3 years’ current, relevant post-admission experience preferably working in the financial services sector with exposure to corporate governance and POPIA with broad exposure to corporate / commercial work;
- You have experience of working in the regulated financial services sector;
- You have demonstrable interest in corporate / commercial law and / or data protection law, underpinned by a good level of knowledge of relevant rules and legislation;
- You are confident in navigating the company law regime (in SA), with enthusiasm for maintaining a high level of responsibility for company secretarial compliance in SA and the UK / BVI if required;
- You have knowledge of relevant FSCA rules and desire to learn the FCA rules;
- You have solid understanding of the legal principles of commercial contracts;
- You have basic knowledge of employment law principles;
- You have some understanding or experience of exchange control requirements;
- You have a basic grounding in anti-money laundering, anti-bribery and know your client/due diligence requirements;
- You have appreciation of the potential legal and regulatory considerations arising from working across multiple jurisdictions (primarily South Africa and the UK), with the ability to identify and appropriately escalate cross-jurisdictional issues where required.
- You are proficient in Microsoft suite particularly Word and interest and willingness to use AI tools.
You are able to hit the ground running. You take pride in your work and yourself and you add value in all your interactions. You are a consummate professional with a friendly disposition. You will be well rewarded and enjoy going to work every day!