Legal and Compliance Specialist

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Job Description

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Symmetry is an investment solutions business operating within the Old Mutual Wealth Group. The business encompasses multi-managed fund solutions, a discretionary fund management capability, and institutional mandates - operating on a B2B model across all client segments.

We are looking to bring in a Legal and Compliance Specialist to support the Head of GLRC in managing the legal and regulatory obligations of the business. The business operates across institutional, retail and private markets segments, with a regulatory footprint spanning CISCA, FAIS, FICA and POPIA, and intends to engage actively with the FSCA across a range of structural, licensing and compliance matters.

The successful candidate will work closely with the Head of GLRC and will carry meaningful responsibility from an early stage. The fund legal and FSCA workstreams are active and require consistent attention; this person will own execution across those workstreams rather than providing ad hoc support.

The core need is for a qualified attorney with hands-on experience in the management company environment: someone who can produce legal work product independently, navigate FSCA processes with confidence, and engage with the substance of CISCA-governed fund structuring. Legal drafting is a day-one requirement, not a development objective.

Key responsibilities will include amongst others the following:

Fund Legal and FSCA Regulatory Work

• Draft, review and negotiate fund-related legal documents including supplemental deeds, co-naming agreements, DFM mandates, and service level agreements with fund-facing counterparties.
• Support FSCA applications and submissions in respect of fund registration, structural changes, and regulatory approvals - including preparation of supporting documentation, correspondence and follow-up.
• Manage the full lifecycle of legal documents from drafting through execution: version control, internal approval routing, execution tracking, and post-execution maintenance.
• Engage with Wealth Legal, Group Compliance and Risk functions, and external legal counsel on CISCA-governed matters, ensuring instructions are precise and deliverables are tracked.
• Maintain a working understanding of CISCA and its application to Symmetry's fund structures, including obligations applicable to the management company, linked product providers and co-named arrangements.
• Support regulatory change analysis in the CISCA and fund regulatory space: translate changes into practical implications for fund documentation and operational processes.

Legal Drafting and Contracts

• Serve as the primary drafter for standard and non-standard agreements across the business: NDAs, introducer agreements, data-sharing arrangements, service provider contracts, and internal policy documents.
• Conduct substantive first-line legal review of incoming agreements, producing clear mark-ups and risk summaries suitable for sign-off by the Head of GLRC and OMW Legal or escalation to external counsel.
• Own and maintain the contracts register: tracking key terms, execution status, renewal dates and obligations across all counterparty relationships.
• Provide legal input on new business initiatives, product changes and operational projects, identifying risk and advising on mitigation with commercial awareness.
• Draft and maintain standard legal templates, policy frameworks and procedural documents for the GLRC function.

Broader Compliance and Governance Support

• Support FICA/AML and POPIA compliance processes as required, including documentation reviews, obligation registers and periodic reporting.
• Assist with governance forum preparation: agenda drafting, minute-taking, action tracking and follow-up reporting.
• Assist with risk register maintenance and risk incident documentation under the direction of the Head of GLRC.
• FAIS compliance experience is advantageous.
• Support basic investment compliance processes including maintaining awareness of CIS portfolio limits and flagging potential mandate or regulatory constraints to the Head of GLRC and the investment team.

These responsibilities offer an overview and a general outline of the role and are not exhaustive.

Qualifications and Experience required:

• LLB or equivalent from a recognised South African university.
• 5 or more years of post-LLB experience in a legal, compliance or regulatory role within financial services.
• Demonstrable experience working within or directly supporting a management company (ManCo) environment under CISCA.
• Practical experience with FSCA applications, submissions and regulatory correspondence - including fund registration or structural change processes.
• Strong independent legal drafting ability: the quality of your drafting should be evident from your work history, not only your qualifications.
• Comfort operating in a complex, multi-entity group structure with shared services, group oversight functions and layered approval requirements.
• Drafts with precision and purpose — producing documents that are legally sound, commercially considered, and appropriately calibrated for the audience
• Understands the CISCA framework not just as regulatory text but as it applies in practice to fund operations, trustee relationships, and regulatory interaction.
• Can manage an FSCA application independently: knowing what is needed, assembling it correctly, and following through until the matter is closed.
• Takes ownership of their workstreams — this role is not supervised at the task level; the expectation is professional accountability for defined outputs.
• Adapts their register across contexts: precise and formal in regulatory and external work; structured and efficient in internal collaboration.
• Identifies when something requires escalation and raises it clearly and promptly, without waiting to be asked.
• Experience at a South African asset manager, collective investment scheme manager or linked product provider (preferred).
• Exposure to fund structuring, co-naming arrangements or supplemental deed drafting (preferred).
• Familiarity with FAIS, FICA/AML and POPIA obligations in a discretionary fund management context (preferred).
• Foundational understanding of investment compliance principles, including CIS portfolio limits, Regulation 28 constraints, and mandate monitoring frameworks (preferred).

Skills

Action Planning, Analytical Thinking, Computer Literacy, Data Compilation, Developing Creative Solutions, Evaluating Information,