Canadian Lawyer InHouse

17 canadianlaWyermag.com/inhouse june 2014 17 canadianlaWyermag.com/inhouse june 2014 ANNUAL CANADIAN L AW YER INHOUSE GENER AL COUNSEL ROUNDTABLE SPOn SOr eD BY: 17 inhouse: Can each of you discuss how regulatory matters are currently affecting your workload? croFT: We are a highly regulated business in the oil industry. The regulations impact- ing our clients impact us indirectly as well, and that includes, as a company that oper- ates in oilfi eld services at well site services, anything relating to the drilling and pro- duction of oil wells in terms of the practices we have to have on site. Our company operates hydraulic frac- turing, and that's certainly been an area that's received regulatory attention and, from all accounts, will continue to do so; and those are certainly things we have to stay up to speed on. BorBridge: From our perspective, the big- gest issue from a regulatory perspective is the changes that are happening within Al- berta to bring three different departments underneath the umbrella of the Alberta En- ergy Regulator. That change has meant a great deal of uncertainty about what the rules are in this period of transition, and a diffi culty in understanding where the regulator will ultimately end up. I would also say we are similar to Bonita's company. We're regu- lated a little bit by public opinion because we are an oilsands producer, and that means we have to constantly strive to improve our processes so that we're being environmen- tally responsible within an industry that is not necessarily, at its core, easy to do. mclean: I wouldn't say there's one regu- latory governance issue that preoccu- pies our time but having such a large global footprint, and operating in so many different jurisdictions, we're just subject to so many regulations. The pace of change seems to continue to increase in, not only in Alberta but in the U.S., as political offi ces change and as public opinion changes. JacKson: The biggest regulatory issue fac- ing us right now is getting ready to comply with the Canadian anti-spam legislation, that comes into effect July 1. The university has a number of electronic messages it sends out from multiple sources and so getting a handle on which ones are commercial electronic messages and which ones aren't is a big job in and of itself. The second part of that is just keeping track and providing evidence to confi rm we have im- plied consent or express consent. It's not something we kept track of before, so that's a big challenge. or the fi rst time since we started conducting our annual Canadian Lawyer InHouse General Counsel Roundtable we decided to take the discussion on the road and outside Toronto to Calgary. What a great experience! The ninth annual InHouse General Counsel Roundtable included legal department leaders from a variety of sectors in Calgary including the oilpatch as well as banking and post-secondary education. These in-house counsel work for dynamic organizations, some with global operations and fi erce competition on the world stage, such as Bryce McLean of Pason Systems Corp. — a technology company that provides services to the oilfi eld drilling industry in 12 countries. Or Bonita Croft of Trican Well Service Ltd. which operates in eight countries including Canada, the U.S., Russia, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Australia, Columbia, and Saudi Arabia. For Karen Jackson of the University of Calgary, her organization has a bold strategy to become one of the top fi ve research universities in Canada by 2016, its 50th anniversary. All of them are working on behalf of trailblazing companies in a city that seems to have endless optimism about their future and that of the country. While the lawyers on our roundtable were all passionate about the organizations they represent they brought particular enthusiasm around a couple of subject areas including the impact of regulatory regimes on not only their departments but how a steady stream of regulations impacts the business — at MEG Energy Corp. Grant Borbridge says he feels the pressure of the court of "public opinion." As well, they have found that as lawyers, they approach risk management like no one else in the organization. Their training and ability to think about an issue makes them ideally suited to this job. Thus they are fi nding themselves drawn into discussions where they might not have been before. The changing dynamic of the legal landscape is also playing itself out before them. Several have adopted new legal services models that rival those of the big fi rms they might have once retained to do the same work. Some are tired of seeing big bills with really no additional explanation for the price hikes, while others understand it is going to take some time for external counsel to adjust to the new normal. We hope you fi nd the discussion informative and insightful. A longer version of this discussion and video coverage of the event is available online at canadianlawyermag.com/inhouse. F

• Cover