Canadian Lawyer InHouse

December/January 2021

Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives

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www.canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse 31 "The legal team enjoys a seat at the table when it comes to strategy, so we try to lead the Canadian business in a way that obviously rolls out to the global business in Atlanta." to work remotely and had previously adopted a paperless work policy and electronic systems, which made the shift smoother. "The fact that we could already sign documents electronically and that our contract management and filing was all done electronically was certainly helpful," says Kirkpatrick. "If we were relying on physical paper for a lot of these deals, that would have been far more cumbersome." The team has also become more proficient in the use of tools including Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans and Zoom. "A lot of the work we were already doing to enhance efficiencies has just been further reinforced by the pandemic," Kirkpatrick says. obviously needed a lot of support and needed revisions to contracts or a new lens through which we would look at marketing and funding and things of that nature," says Kirkpatrick. While the Coca-Cola Company's Toron- to-based headquarters has been closed since the pandemic struck in March and remains closed until the end of 2020, production operations continued throughout the crisis, as food and beverage companies are considered an essential service. The legal team had to deal with issues surrounding employees who tested positive for COVID-19 as well as customers who reported associates testing positive. Facilities had to be closed for cleaning in some cases. The legal team was already well equipped WORKING TOWARD A NEW BUSINESS MODEL As part of its global restructuring effort, the Coca-Cola Company is reducing its business model to nine units from 17, which will help streamline the organization by replacing current business units and groups. These units will work with five new category leads that are considered to have the strongest consumer opportunities on a global scale: • Coca-Cola • Sparkling flavours • Hydration, sports, coffee and tea • Nutrition, juice, milk and plant • Emerging categories Scott Kirkpatrick

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