About

Prarabdha R. Jaipuriar joined the legal profession in the year 2007. After working with several law firms, he joined the erstwhile SUEZ Environment India in November 2013 as an in-house counsel. In 2014, he was asked to lead the legal team for the unified legal organisation of the group companies in India, including Degrémont India. Subsequently, his scope was expanded to the Indian subcontinent. As the group made acquisitions in this region, his scope kept on evolving. In May 2017, he was also appointed the ethics officer and presently leads a team of eight lawyers, in charge of legal affairs, corporate compliance, contract compliance and ethics. Jaipuriar plays a key role in the group’s growth activities of the business targeted at industrial clients in the region. For example the group acquired Driplex, an industrial treatment solutions company, in 2016 and globally acquired GE’s water and process technologies division and consolidated all industrial businesses in a common vertical in 2017. Jaipuriar’s legal team in India is actively involved in all these activities, providing legal and secretarial support. The legal team has also been actively supporting the growth of the group’s business in the water services segment where the group recently got major long-term contracts in Coimbatore, Davanagere and Kolkata. Jaipuriar has been actively involved in capacity building activities inside and outside of the company. He has conducted several trainings for employees cutting across functions on topics ranging from contract management, legal risk analysis, ethics and laws relating to prevention of sexual harassment (POSH). Within the legal team, he has focussed greatly on continuous knowledge accretion of team members, encouraging them to participate in seminars, conferences and webinars, conducting regular sessions on legal updates, developing a good library and online resources and developing an e-platform for the sharing of legal news and updates. Jaipuriar sums up his approach to managing the legal team and legal issues at SUEZ by saying, ‘In the complicated business environment where we service municipal and industrial clients, challenges are unique and so are their solutions. The lawyers in the team are encouraged to have a hands-on approach. This has helped [the] business gain more confidence on the legal front and be more risk-ready’.