| Hinduja Group
Hinduja Group
Our group company in India has been impacted by recent regulatory changes in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Our Indian companies across the board have also been impacted by regulatory changes in relation to compliances and disclosures required by the Stock Exchanges and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The corporate governance scenario in India is also changing rapidly and there are constant changes in regulations which our Indian companies have to comply with. Ongoing changes and the introduction of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) have had its impact as have changes to the company law requirements and its amendment. Recently the Arbitration and Conciliation Act of India has been amended, making it more user friendly.
In our group there are several listed and many unlisted companies across the world. Each listed company has its own legal department. They always refer their complex matters to the London legal team at the global headquarters. We work closely with our legal teams abroad. Further, we have our specialist tax advisors, mainly the Big Four, which are recognised across the globe and are being consulted regularly on the tax related and structural issues. On the top of it we have external legal advisors, whom we deal with depending upon the requirements and necessities. Some of them are engaged by us in different jurisdictions. In short this is a combination of many factors. We also have our external law firms who are engaged/commissioned based on project requirements and in several cases, they work with us almost on a daily basis for several years until the project is completed. Our structure of the legal team is simple throughout the countries we operate and hence we try and maintain the same structure.
What are the most significant projects that the legal team has been involved with recently?
We have a very substantial multijurisdictional litigation going on in the last three years or so. This is a very complex litigation in offshore locations requiring dealing with top external legal counsels on a daily basis. We have recently settled a case on corporate laws in the English High Court involving a non-UK corporate entity. We are also assisting our Indian entity dealing with regulatory investigations and litigation. In the last year we were involved in the negotiations of acquiring a US based company and setup a joint venture for a cyber security business. Also involved in engaging construction contractors for our multi-billion dollar investment project in London. The team has given advice to public limited group companies on raising capital worth millions of pounds and very high end and a complex employment dispute as well as advising on a sponsorship license and other corporate immigration work for a group company abroad. We are also developing corporate governance and other structures for one of our technology companies based mainly in India, the US and Europe.
We are a US$18bn annual turnover conglomerate with 127,000 people operating in more than 60 countries and dealing with 10 business verticals in core sectors marketing its products in more than 100 countries and IPRs registered in more than 100 countries. Our main focus is to continue to concentrate on those verticals and grow horizontally and vertically. We are keenly watching UK’s Brexit and its consequences on the UK’s economy so that its impact is minimum in our operations. We have a one and half billion US dollars of investment projects in London which may be impacted because of Brexit.
We are yet to introduce AI in our legal department. Unless its benefit surpasses the cost of its introduction, we would not practically implement its usage. However, to continue to bring efficiencies, we train our department both from commercial and legal angles. Since we are in the global headquarters in London, we always are under constant pressure to achieve timelines and targets and have excelled ourselves in achieving them. Working as a team globally and getting the constant legal issues addressed and coming out with a solution using the current technology and efficiently transferring the information and relevant documents to its ultimate destination has always been a challenge that we successfully achieve.
Hinduja Group has its own culture and ethos. The founding father identified five principles namely: work to give; word is a bond; act local, think global; partnership for growth; and advance fearlessly. Above all the legal department always believes that, being a commercial enterprise, the group has to do business. Therefore, our advice is commercially driven and not based on theory. We first understand the commercial requirement from the business that we work with, co-operate with them, understand their issues and then try to come out with solutions. Over the years we in the legal department have been able to muster the art of understanding commercial requirements and compulsions and mould our advice fulfilling their commercial and business needs. To achieve this object, we work very closely with businesses and vice-versa by getting involved at the drawing board stage itself. We maintain excellent relationship with CEO’s and business executives of our Group companies and try to help them as much as we can. It is the relationship based on partnership. Focus on…
