About

KCT Group is one of India’s leading conglomerates. Founded in 1929 as a coal mining company, today KCT has a highly diversified portfolio of businesses with interest in sectors ranging from real estate, coal and infrastructure to manufacturing and aquaculture. Presently made up of five lawyers and one paralegal, KCT’s legal team is based in two locations – New Delhi and Kolkata. The team is led by vice president and group head legal, Ashok Maheshwa who pushes the team to think as business managers, while using its legal knowledge to tackle business challenges and its mitigation. ‘Legal is a business function first which must contribute to organisational goals, to inculcate in the minds of the legal team that he or she must endeavour to find legally tenable solutions within given business constraints’, says Maheshwa. Behind most of the company’s large scale acquisitions, some the legal team’s most recent work include the EPC related arbitration which amounted to a $40-50m claim size. Praised for being excellent negotiators, the team has used the new insolvency code for recovery when negotiating with business debtor, tactically using mechanisms under the code. Furthermore, the team has been assigned a commercial property development for a long term lease, negotiating the agreement by working with risk attendants. Through their successful navigation of cases, the team continue to possess the strong ability to connect legal nuances with business challenges.