About

Can you briefly explain how the legal team is structured, highlighting key individuals and their role within the department? The team is structured to support the business markets and global corporate functions. We support the South Asia, Turkey and Singapore markets wherein my team and I partner with the commercial stakeholders and provide them with necessary legal support and timely advise. For the markets, the legal efforts are led Mehak Khanna and Maina Duggal. Mehak joined Oriflame in February 2016 and has been involved in key transactions and been instrumental in training the commercial teams on legal policies and processes. Maina has recently joined our team and she brings a rich and diverse FMCG experience specially in the legal-regulatory advisory domain. The other vertical of the team is structured to support critical group corporate functions including global procurement/supply chain; marketing; IT and global shared services. Here the team coordinates and works with the international players on these business sensitive areas. Sabiha Niyazi supports the procurement department and is also the company secretary for Oriflame India. Somya Rai who has also joined the team recently from a top-rated law firm is responsible for the marketing and creative studio department. What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has been involved with in the last two years? In the past the team has been involved in various business defining assignments wherein we have provided strategic legal advice and end to end transaction support. Recently the team led the efforts in filing a suit for injunctions against leading e commerce player Amazon India. The relief sought was to prohibit Amazon from selling/facilitating sales of direct selling entities products without our prior consent on their platform. This case was closely followed by the entire industries and media as it could significantly impact the business operations for either industry. I was supported by Mehak Khanna and Kshitij Ajmani as we collated facts and conducted in depth research on complex legal proposition under Information Technology; Contract; Tort and Intellectual Property laws of India and foreign jurisdictions. On the basis of the in-house efforts and thorough briefings to the senior advocate, we were successful in getting a 200 page plus order favouring us on all ground and granting us the desired interim relief. What recent political, economic or regulatory changes in India have impacted your company and the team the most? The vast business opportunity that India offers has always been tagged with a varying economic, regulatory and legal landscape. It is expected of companies to keep themselves abreast with the changing environment and to be versatile enough to plan and implement necessary steps to ensure timely compliance. Of the many changes, perhaps the most important move has been towards data privacy and related IT compliances. Oriflame as an organization has been moving rapidly towards digitalisation and has been committed to meet the applicable laws and regulations governing this space. The legal team has been working closely with the IT department in mapping the necessary requirements in line with applicable law. Our working with the global teams has given us a fair understanding of GDPR and this has helped the team in analysing draft Indian laws from an internationally acceptable angle and accordingly provide industry inputs to the authorities as party of the lobbying efforts. For the IT legal profile, I am supported by Arijita Kakati from my team who also has hand on experience in analysing IT compliances and negotiating complex IT contracts with global and local service providers. How has the team harnessed technology to improve output or drive efficiencies? As part of the global legal umbrella, my team works with the global counsels in developing and implementing online tools such as contract review forms; spend approval processes; and digital dashboards to monitor the contract management progress. Based on our continued interactions with the business teams, we work toward making changes to these tools to provide more value add and ease the tasks. As a result of my team’s efforts my markets have shown the highest compliance towards these online tools and have been recognised for this achievement.

Can you sum up the team culture/ethos? Giving some information afterwards about how this is developed. The team’s culture is very much in line with the company’s core values – TSP (Togetherness, Spirit and Passion). I lead from the front and train my team members to work in a manner that befits the organization’s interest and safety. We work to be acknowledged as valued business partners by providing timely and practical legal solutions to help achieve the commercial purpose. Of course, it is also our role to keep the management updated of any potential risks that may surface out of a decision making and advice on the risk mitigation measure. Focus on…