People.

Hong Kong Founded Payments FinTech

Project: Neat is a Hong Kong founded FinTech that works with fast-growing start-ups and SMEs that require global payments solutions. After closing their Series A round, they came to KorumLegal for support setting up their legal function, as their reliance on external counsel for all legal work was becoming cost prohibitive.  Having never before had an in-house counsel, Neat were also unsure initially how much time the role would require so they were looking for a flexible solution that provided them with cost certainty and scalability.

Solution: KorumLegal provided Neat with a senior consultant, who had Hong Kong and wider APAC experience in the payments and FinTech space.  The consultant started by working three days per week, but after one month the secondment was extended to four days per week, as the productivity and cost-efficiency benefits of bringing this function in-house quickly became clear.  Through the partnership with KorumLegal, Neat has also been able to tap into the wider network of KorumLegal consultants with an ongoing retainer arrangement, leveraging legal consultants across the UK, Singapore and Europe to assist with ad hoc work and strategic projects as its business and customer base expands. By combining these KorumLegal solutions, Neat has been able to dramatically reduce their overall legal spend as well as increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their growing legal function.

Global Outsourcing Business.

Project: A global enterprise services provider, with a small legal team based in Singapore responsible for APAC, was challenged by the volume and variety of work which exceeded its in-house capability and made them too reliant on external law firms. They needed to reduce external legal spend, and with no budget for additional headcount, they needed support for a wide variety of APAC work, including China expertise.

Solution:  The customer opted for a retainer block of hours each month, which enabled them to access KorumLegal's platform of consultants, with a range of specialist expertise throughout APAC. The customer uses the hours to engage different specialist consultants as and when required. To date they have engaged consultants for Chinese customer contracts, supplier contracts and employment matters in several APAC jurisdictions, and to manage their internal corporate restructure and post-demerger workstreams. The customer can easily increase their hours from month to month, giving them flexibility and 100% cost certainty.  It provides coverage for expertise that the general counsel may not have, at better value.

International Toy Company.

Project: The customer’s initial requirement was a Chinese speaking general commercial consultant as a maternity cover to support their global sourcing business. They also underlined their need for a cost-effective solution.

Solution: We provided the customer with a few consultants to consider, but they ultimately went for a non-Chinese speaking consultant, mainly due to the high quality of the consultant’s experience. The consultant was on a six-month assignment which was later extended for another 3 months. Following two successful assignments, the customer decided to employ the consultant on a permanent basis. All our consultants are meticulously selected ensuring they are of high quality and can add significant value as an extension of your legal team.

International Australian Bank.

Project: The customer needed a partner on an ongoing basis for; 1) extra capacity to cover overflow work, 2) specific legal expertise for a legal project outside their teams practice areas.

Solutions: Over the three years we have worked with the customer, we have provided four consultants with varying levels of experience and expertise to support the in-house team.  A technology and procurement specialist, an experienced corporate lawyer and a senior general commercial expert – to  streamline and rationalise its function. All the consultants were selected based on the customer's specific legal needs and understanding the cultural fit within the team and business.

E-Commerce Fashion Retailer.

Project: This start-up customer required a flexible legal consultant at an affordable price, to immediately assist with their capital raising, general commercial matters and ad hoc work, as and when it came up.  They’d previously used a permanent in-house counsel but the need to cost-ratio had become too much.

Solution: We provided the customer with a mid-level consultant who worked in a variety of ways.  For the first year, they worked three days a week, with some full-time periods (i.e. capital raising) and from the second year they worked on a monthly retainer basis (also with some full-time periods).  The consultant worked at the customer's office and virtually, depending on the work. We conducted a cost analysis of using a KorumLegal consultant which projected a HK$5,000,000 saving when compared to average Hong Kong law firm rate (with the consultant working 3 days per week over 12 months) and a projected HK$600,000 saving when compared to a full-time in-house counsel. Our innovative solution, has been a significant value-add resource for the customer.