Mostly the internal effort of reconstructing an accurate structure and extracting decision records from systems across several countries. That work usually falls on people in more than one office. Legal analysis also runs longer where the authority question is contested.
Name an owner for the evidence work
Assign someone with access across the relevant systems and the standing to ask leaders in other countries for records, and budget their time honestly. Ask counsel to scope the assessment separately from drafting, and to say what a finding of insufficient authority would mean for fees already committed. Confirm official charges at the time of the relevant step rather than relying on a figure quoted earlier.
Add one further question to that scoping conversation: what happens if the reconciled picture turns out weaker than the organisation believed. Matrix cases frequently look stronger from the inside, because everyone involved knows what the person actually influences and nobody has tried to prove it to a stranger. Establish in advance whether an unfavourable assessment ends the engagement, redirects it toward a structural change in the business, or triggers a fresh estimate — and whether the fee already spent carries into whatever follows.
Hypothetical example: an architectural practice commissions the assessment first, learns the authority is genuinely shared, and spends the following quarter changing the reporting structure rather than the paperwork, which is a slower answer and a considerably better one than presenting a description the business would not have recognised.