Department Description

We are currently recruiting a graduate lawyer to join our Legal team in Australia as a Graduate Trainee – Legal. The successful candidate will be employed to work full time hours on a fixed term 12-month contract. This is an exciting opportunity to get hands-on experience within a fast-paced, results focused, global organisation that values diversity. The successful candidate will be involved in a broad range of matters and will build close relationships with local teams and within the organisation more broadly on a regional and global basis.

This is a unique role for a graduate lawyer, to work in a small format team and work alongside and gain exposure to senior professionals in a global bank. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to learn legal skills across a wide range of financing and markets businesses in an atmosphere where they are mentored and carefully trained. This includes the opportunity to develop key skills including drafting, transaction management, legal research, and work with and develop relationships with senior business and legal leaders in the Sydney and Asia Pacific offices across Societe Generale. This role offers a great start to a legal career in banking and finance, with an opportunity for the graduate lawyer to be exposed to a variety of areas of banking and finance law.

Major Accountabilities/Principal Responsibilities:

The Legal function in Australia is responsible for providing legal advice services in relation to all of the Lending and Markets based businesses which are located in the Societe Generale Sydney office. The major accountabilities and principal responsibilities for the role are:

• Providing legal advice, focusing on the financing business of the bank, including drafting, negotiation, review of related documentation and advising on the interpretation of laws and regulations and liaising with external counsel where necessary to the following business lines:
  • Project Finance lending teams in Australia and Hong Kong, including Infrastructure, Metals and Mining, and Energy;
  • Asset Backed Lending business in Australia which focuses on securitization and structured debt opportunities;
  • Real Estate Financing business in Australia;
  • Debt Capital Markets business in Australia;
  • Corporate coverage lending business in Australia and Hong Kong; and
  • Markets based business in Australia including ASX24 futures desk, Structured Products and Equity Derivatives

Legal support to these business lines may involve tasks including the review of non-disclosure agreements, commitment letters, legal opinions, facility agreements and related security arrangements, including bilateral and syndicated financing, and project financing and finance-related hedging.

• Providing legal advice and assistance on legal matters to the front office, back office and middle office representatives and other teams or departments of the bank (including other legal teams in Asia and Europe) in connection with the local and regional Societe Generale activities.
• Providing day-to-day transaction support and pro-active management of internal and administrative processes for Legal relating to the Australian business.
• Staying up-to-date on developments and change in the regulatory sector which could affect the Australian business including in relation to privacy, unfair contract terms, financial services laws, the Corporations Act and modern slavery legislation.
• Reporting and escalating appropriate matters on an ongoing and regular basis to the line manager and working closely with other members of the legal department across the APAC region.
• Providing assistance in updating guidelines, procedures and standard templates.
• Other financing-related work covered by the legal department.