speakers



Lalit Bhasin

President
Society of Indian Law Firms



Mr. Lalit Bhasin is currently the President of the Society of Indian Law Firms and also the Managing Partner of Bhasin & Co.

He was awarded Honorary Membership of the IBA in Melbourne in 1994 for outstanding service to the legal profession. He is also the honorary Secretary General of The Bar Association of India. He was awarded the Plaque of Honour by the Prime Minister of India in 2002 for outstanding contribution to the Rule of Law. He is the Executive President of the India Law Foundation.

According to Asia Law Profiles "the high-profile advocate and litigator Lalit Bhasin, Bhasin & Co., Advocates continues to be one of New Delhi's leading litigation firms. Bhasin is well respected for his leadership abilities in the legal community. Apart from litigation, the firm also has a good reputation for its general corporate and commercial work and has recently joined the list of firms involved in privatization. Bhasin & Co. currently maintains offices in New Delhi and Mumbai and has 28 associates."

S. Ramaswamy

Chair, INBA, General Counsel Section, Former Executive Vice-President,
Group General Counsel of Escorts Ltd and Founder Medha Advisors



To be updated.

Pranav Mago

Head (South Asia)
Singapore International Arbitration Centre



Pranav joined SIAC in August 2015 and will be based in the SIAC Mumbai office.

Pranav graduated from Amity Law School, Delhi in 2010 and enrolled as an Advocate and cleared the All India Bar Exam in the year 2011. Prior to joining SIAC, he was working with the International Arbitration and Dispute Resolution team of a UK Magic Circle firm.

During his time at the UK Magic Circle firm, he worked on a number of SIAC, ICC, LCIA and ICSID arbitrations and also advised clients on mediation matters. He was also appointed secretary to the tribunal for SIAC arbitrations. In addition to arbitration matters, he has been part of a team to undertake global investigations of regulatory breaches and also has experience of working on insolvency and restructuring matters."

Geetu Singh

Partner, Forensic Services
PwC



Geetu is a Partner with Forensic & Dispute practice of PwC. She has over 15 years of work experience across practice areas of Forensic, Dispute & Litigation, and Valuation and Audit services.

She comes with extensive experience in Business, Merger and Litigation Valuations throughout her stint with Forensic & Dispute and Corporate Finance practices of some of the Big Four Firms. Her experience across both service lines gives her the ability to uniquely blend fundamentals of Forensic Dispute & Litigation advisory and business merger & acquisition transactions and valuations. She has launched practices with areas of focus in Construction disputes, Joint venture & shareholder disputes, Intellectual property disputes practice and Purchase price disputes within the Dispute advisory practice in India. She is a confident and impactful public speaker and presenter.

B. Gopalakrishnan

Legal Advisor and Head- Legal Operations Group
Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd.



A dynamic and result oriented legal professional with 3 decades (37 years) of experience in legal areas encompassing Banking, Corporate, Capital Market and Business Laws, Cross Border Transaction & procedures, Human Resource issues and Employee Grievance Redressal. Litigation & Cross Border Litigation and International Arbitration. Currently designated as Legal Advisor and heading the Legal Operations Group of Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd. (Arcil), Mumbai, one of India's largest and premier ARC. Prior to that he was President & Head of Law Dept and is heading the Legal department of AXIS Bank Ltd, Mumbai. A new generation Private sector bank having a total of over 2100 branches in India and abroad. The team comprised of 35 Legal Professionals. In-depth understanding of matters related to Documentation, Structured finance, Mergers and Takeovers, Capital Markets, Capital raising, GDR'S / Cross Border, Acquisition, setting up of Foreign Branches, financing companies for foreign acquisition, Private Banking, Taxation Laws, Banking Laws, Suit Filings and Litigation, Civil and Criminal Laws, Recoveries of Debts including SARFAESI related issues, Documentation, of all types of loans and structured finances, IPR, Trade Marks and Copyright Laws, Corporate & Structured Finances and compliance. Proficient in drafting legal documents and assisting senior legal professionals and appearing before courts and tribunals. Practical and business focused approach to achieve organizational goals & coupled with strong inter personal skills. Adept at maintaining cordial business relationship with legal counsels/ senior counsels & external agencies. An effective communicator with exceptional relationship management skills. Apart from this, known and admired speaker in many of the National & International Conference on various subjects as also a Guest Lecturer and a Visiting Faculty for many institutions on Banking Laws, Mergers and Acquisitions, Tax Laws in India. Independently appears before the Courts, Tribunals and represents the Bank in major tax related cases. Contributes to many professional magazines and newspapers and is a member legal and operational committee of Indian Banker's Association apart from a Faculty Member in many reputed Institutes.

Idris Rassawala

AVP - Sales
eMudhra Limited



Nirupam Srivastava

Director - Strategy and M&A
LexisNexis



Nirupam Srivastava is Director - Strategy and M&A for LexisNexis India and South Asia. He is responsible for growing India and South Asia Business, review strategy and key business/product initiatives, and also effectively communicate the strategy to the wider business.

Nirupam has over seventeen years of experience in developing and executing growth strategy for Indian as well as foreign multinational companies including IBM, Schneider Electric, Infosys, and Siemens and advising clients such as Sony, Samsung, Nippon Sumitomo, Governments of various countries as a part of IBM consulting. During his career, he has worked across functional areas such as marketing, finance, business development and alliances/acquisitions.

He is an MBA from the founding class of Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, India a B. Tech in Electronics and Communications from NIT Kurukshetra, and ACS, from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

His main focus is on organic (New products) and inorganic (Mergers & Acquisitions) growth initiatives for achieving profitable growth and supporting Rule of Law. He works closely with other teams to foster a culture of innovation, encouraging broad participation in the execution of the strategy.

Pulin Kumar

Senior Legal Director, Group Legal & Compliance
Adidas India



  • Pulin Kumar is a Group Senior Legal and Compliance Director of adidas India. Currently he looks after the legal and compliance functions of the group i.e. adidas India and Reebok India. The mandate includes contract, compliance, litigation management and advisory of the legal commercial issues.
  • Pulin Kumar is a commerce graduate from Patna University and graduated in law from Campus Law Centre, University of Delhi in the year 1991. He is also a PG Diploma in IR&PM from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi.
  • Pulin Kumar has started his journey as in-house counsel from Indian and MNC conglomerates such as Montari Industries, Triveni Engineering, Ambuja Cements, New Holland Tractors, Jubilant Organosys, Samsung India and currently with adidas India group.
  • Pulin Kumar has been a part of many significant best practices and improvements in the internal governance related to the corporate sector and has immensely contributed in this area. He has been actively participating in legal conferences. He also co-hosts a knowledge sharing platform "Sadgamaya" an informal association, founded by a few likeminded General Counsels and lawyers.
  • Pulin Kumar has been conferred with an award of the "General Counsel of the year 2015-Retail" by Indian National Bar Association (INBA). He has also been appointed as the Chairman of INBA's Retail Law Section.

Lomesh Kiran Nidumuri

Partner
IndusLaw



Lomesh’s practice focuses on complex civil & commercial litigation and arbitration matters. He has advised and represented clients in a variety of litigation matters relating to commercial contracts, shareholder agreements, oppression and mismanagement, winding-up, amalgamation and restructuring of companies.

He has also represented clients in disputes relating to tenders, tax, intellectual property rights, and white-collar crimes.

He has experience in representing clients before various arbitral tribunals on a wide variety of issues, as well as before the Courts in actions for interim relief, challenging arbitral awards, the constitution of arbitral tribunals to resolve disputes.

Lomesh obtained a Masters in Law (LL.M) from New York University School of Law, New York, where one of his areas of focus was on international arbitration and dispute resolution.

He is a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (Lucknow) where he teaches legal aspects of Mergers & Acquisitions. He has authored articles and conducted several seminars on the recent corporate reforms introduced by the Companies Act, 2013.

Mahaveer Singhvi

Director
Ministry of External Affairs



Mr. Mahaveer Singhvi is a career diplomat. He was appointed to the Indian Foreign Service (the diplomatic service of India) in the year 1999. He has been serving as Director (SAARC, BIMSTEC and Border Connectivity) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi. Prior to this, he served as Director (E&SA) and was responsible for all aspects of India's multidimensional relationships with the countries of East and Southern Africa. He also served as Director in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Division and Deputy Secretary in Multilateral Economic Relations (MER) Division of the Ministry of External Affairs where he dealt with India's emerging relationship with the Latin American and Caribbean countries and multilateral groupings and organizations such as BRICS, IBSA, IORA, OECD etc., respectively. He also had a stint in the Technical Cooperation (TC) Division of the Ministry where he was responsible for implementation of India's flagship programme of development assistance in the realm of South- South Cooperation known as Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme. In the beginning of his career as Under Secretary (On Training), Mr. Singhvi served in the East Asia Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.

Mr. Singhvi had represented India on several international forums during his various assignments in the diplomatic service. He had also attended a number of professional development programmes, seminars and conferences on diverse subjects including those on National Security and Nuclear Strategy while serving in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Avimukt Dar

Partner
IndusLaw



Avimukt advises on a range of corporate, commercial and foreign investment laws. He represents domestic and international companies and private equity investors in strategic and financial investment transactions across a range of sectors.

Avimukt also represents clients in commercial and corporate disputes including competition law issues and has extensive experience in negotiating exit strategies for investors and joint venture partners.

Avimukt is a recommended lawyer for Corporate and Mergers & Acquisitions in New Delhi in the Asia Pacific Legal 500 and he is a regular speaker at the UIA-ABA International Seminars on Corporate Governance and M&A.

He is a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (Lucknow) where he teaches legal aspects of Mergers & Acquisitions. He has authored articles and conducted several seminars on the recent corporate reforms introduced by the Companies Act, 2013.

Dr. Sanjeev Gemawat

Executive Director - Legal
Dalmia Bharat Group



Dr. Sanjeev Gemawat is Executive Director - Legal with Dalmia Bharat Group and looks after the legal affairs of Cement Business. Dr. Gemawat has more than 2 decades of experience as head of legal, taxation & secretarial functions of esteemed corporates, MNCs and joint ventures in India such as DLF; JCB, UK; Modi Olivetti; GBC, USA and has also practiced as an Advocate. He worked across various industries in the areas of legal, risk and compliance, taxation, secretarial, regulatory and corporate affairs for producers/manufacturers/service providers of cement plants, industrial equipments, computer/IT hardware, office automation & solutions, construction & earthmoving industry and real estate industry including utilities/services, power generation, hospitality sector and retail business.

Dr. Gemawat’s areas of practice includes corporate & commercial laws, real estate/property laws, tax laws, intellectual property laws, industrial & employment laws, environmental laws, contracts including international contracts, litigation & arbitrations including foreign jurisdiction, joint ventures, private equity transactions, acquisitions mergers amalgamations restructuring, compliances and risk management, corporate governance etc.

Deepak Jacob

President & General Counsel
Star TV Group



Deepak Jacob is currently the President & General Counsel of Star TV group in India. He is responsible for all legal & regulatory matters that impact Star’s businesses in India. He also manages the government relations portfolio along with the CEO for Star and is the point person for all policy and strategic matters involving the government of India & the regulators.

Deepak is one of the members of the Joint Task Force (JTF) constituted by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, for the phase-wise implementation of the digitalization roadmap of the cable TV sector in India. He is also nominated on the Board of Broadcast Content Complaint Council (BCCC), which is the self-regulatory body, for regulation of content for non-news and current affairs television channels in India.

As a lawyer, he has rich and varied work experience across a variety of industry sectors such as Media, Telecom, Information Tech and ecommerce businesses. His prior roles have been as the head of Legal for eBay India and Senior Legal Counsel at Reliance Infocomm Ltd, in the Broadband & Corporate Wireless division. Prior to joining the corporate sector he practiced as a litigation lawyer in the Delhi courts for over 6 years and did a 3 year stint as a corporate lawyer with a leading law firm in Delhi.

Dr. Sagar Suresh Dhole

Legal Counsel
Barclays Group Barclays Shared Services Pvt. Ltd



Working as Corporate Legal counsel with Barclays Bank PLC Group - BSS, having 08 years experience in field of banking legal compliance - AML and Investment Banking.

Completed LLB from Nagpur University as University topper, gold medalist, MBA in international Business Management from Central Institute and after extensive research in banking domain, was awarded with PhD degree in Business management.

Started his career in 2006 as Legal assistant with Bombay High court, Nagpur bench, worked with Deutsche Bank group, Swiss Bank Group- Credit Suisse and now with Barclays Bank PLC group. Have extensive and lead experience in negotiations, regulatory compliance and legal advisory for trade finance documentation, litigation management, ODI and structured lending documentation, anti-money laundering, due diligence requirement by Foreign institutional investor, Qualified foreign investor, third party payments, advisor on regulatory policies by RBI and SEBI.