About

A $41bn revenue corporation and a constituent of the Indian Fortune 500, Aditya Birla Group operates in 40 countries with more than 120,000 employees worldwide. The in-house legal department of the conglomerate, based in Mumbai, ensures the smooth running of different Group companies and provides comprehensive legal services including arbitration and litigation, transactional advisory, contract review, compliance and process development. Praised by peers for its ‘strong commercial acumen and solutions-oriented approach’ the unit has been a driver for growth with its work for structuring acquisitions, joint ventures transactions and private equity investments. In 2017, the department has provided strategic guidance on the merger between two of the group’s textile subsidiaries, which is expected to cement its position in the sector. The team is led by V R Shankar, a lawyer with over 30 years of professional experience, 15 of which were accrued in the position of chief legal officer at PepsiCo in India. Besides its leader, the department also features a number of prominent lawyers well recognised in India’s in-house community, including Minesh Patel, Mahua Duttasarkar, Lucky Popli and Shirly Thomas.