About

After a successful career in law firms and working on various large transactions, Sameer Chugh moved in-house in 2001 joining NCR as their India counsel. He then enjoyed roles at BT (British Telecom), the Essar Group and Cummins before taking his current role as general counsel and director – legal and regulatory with Bharti Airtel in 2014. He has handled over US$21bn worth of transactions in his career, and has been involved in cross-border deals in several countries including, the US, the UK, South Africa, Germany, Indonesia and Singapore. Currently he manages a large team of approximately 70 people which includes 60 lawyers based across India and Sri Lanka. The legal department has been instrumental in driving savings of about of INR8.43bn through successful litigation in the last 12 months. Some of the notable cases are the favourable Bombay High Court judgment against a CCI order on allegations of “cartelisation” and anti-competitive agreements, the Supreme Court judgment in the call-drop matter, a Delhi High Court judgment on TDS on interconnect-usage-charges and a Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment, among others. The solution oriented approach introduced by Chugh has also driven the start of a range of services for enriching the subscriber’s network as well as digital experience. Some of the salient initiatives include implementation of the “Open Network” program, which focused on involving customers in identifying network issues and then resolving them; closing important deals for the implementation of core business intelligence platforms that enable targeting customers with customised offers; leading closure of contracts with multiple partners for implementing projects, enabling customers to have greater visibility and control of their services and consumption. On his leadership and success as an in-house lawyer, Chugh identifies qualities that have helped him: ‘the in-house counsel has the end-to-end responsibility of not stating what the law says but also how the same is to be applied and implemented. Further, while being fully cognizant and alive to the needs of the business and the customers, compliance is also a key critical requirement. In a nutshell, it is not just about giving advice but also being responsible for the outcome – good or bad’!