Team size: Four

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

We have a strong in-house legal and compliance framework and infrastructure backed by support from external counsels on dawn raids as well as the ever-growing cybercrimes and impersonations and scams. The issues and crisis are managed extremely collaboratively and cohesively.

What strategies do you employ to ensure the successful digital transformation of a legal department while maintaining compliance with your country’s data protection laws?

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting? – I have been part of first of its kind Global Merger of two Swiss banking groups (Credit Suisse with UBS) and for over 2.5 consecutive years have worked on the legal integration of Credit Suisse with UBS.

The acquisition for Indian entities required approval from SEBI, RBI, NSDL, Stock exchanges and all other SEBI departments in relation to every license held. The integration also entailed, business transfer by way of slump sale, merger, demerger, consolidated schemes for – consolidation of legal entities.

Given the current geopolitical shifts and growing uncertainties around international free trade, has your company’s risk profile evolved, and are you taking measures to address these challenges?

Based on your experiences in the past year, are there any trends in the legal or business world that you are keeping an eye on that you think other in-house lawyers should be mindful of?  - We are keeping a very close eye on the recent labour law changes and DPDP Rules and their implementation in our organisation.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

Bandwidth constraints, subject matter expertise and market views on specific legal issues and recent legal and regulatory developments.  Law firms market outreach, ranking and more important quality advice and partner time are key determining factors.