Workflow
Much of the work flowing through Perret's team has an IP theme. "With Cadbury being such an iconic brand, protecting and enforcing our intellectual property is also a focus area for the legal team. We are very much involved in product innovation and development, and at all stages of new product launches, whether at the concept stage and ultimately through to reviewing artwork, advertising and point of sale material," she says.
Another key area is trade practices. "As an FMCG company, as you would expect we have a strong trade practices focus and assist with promotions, sponsorship arrangements and the like, providing extensive legal support to the sales, strategy and marketing teams for example," Perret says.
The diversity of expertise in Perret's team means that outsourcing occurs on a limited basis. "We tend to limit outsourcing to large scale M&A and litigation which we don't have the resources to do in house or specialist areas such as industrial relations and taxation," she says. "We also sometimes use external law firms as 'arms and legs' for matters requiring very long and complicated agreements with a lot of drafting needing to be done in a short time frame. That frees us up to make sure the agreement being reached is one that works best for the business rather than merely focusing on how it is being documented."
The current economic climate has increased the workload for the team, although not dramatically. However, this additional work has mainly been in areas such as those relating to the creditworthiness of counterparties and trading terms, but Perret says that on the whole this has not been a key driver of legal work. "We are currently reconfiguring our chocolate and candy operations in Australia and New Zealand for example, and it is this kind of more strategic initiative that is occupying our time," she says. ALB
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