About

How would you introduce the legal team to our readers?

The legal team of Kotak Mahindra Bank is a one-stop shop for all legal requirements of a financial services conglomerate such as ours. The team consists of legal professionals and caters to most of the Group’s requirements, with little reliance on external advocates. In litigations external legal support is sought as and when required. The team is led by Bhargesh Ojha, general counsel and there are five heads below the general counsel who head the legal support initiatives across the various business areas of the Bank and other Kotak group companies, together with their respective teams. The team comprises of 125 lawyers and three support staff. The majority of the team members are located in Mumbai, the corporate office of the Bank. Bangalore and Delhi are the other two regional centres.

What factors do you feel makes the team unique?

We engage with business teams in strategizing and structuring deals and transactions. We conceptualise, develop, structure and advise on new products (with business teams), draft documentation, synergising the latest developments in the field of laws, regulations and market practices. Identifying risk mitigants with a solution oriented approach is also another strongpoint of the team. We also partner with internal clients in handling early warning matters thereby enabling the taking of swift action for securing the bank including exploring avenues of alternative resolutions and early recoveries. Some members of the team are exclusively focused on litigations and planning and execution of recovery strategy. The team has traversed through many transactions including in relation to derivatives, lending (both domestic and international), debenture issuances by the group companies, securitisation, M&A transactions involving the bank and the group. This has involved providing inputs to the senior management relating to strategies for critical transactions like the acquisition of shares, options, portfolio buyouts among others. Escrow accounts business being one of the leading business in the banking sector, we are the only bank to have a specialised team giving end to end solutions for escrow products. The legal team is also conscious of IT integration and technology platforms on which the bank’s products are based and hence is able to provide legal solutions in alignment with the requisite techno-legal nuances. As the custodian of the intellectual property rights of the Kotak group, the team manages the registrations and renewals of all its trademarks. The team manages these trade-marks in India and in international jurisdictions. We proactively track instances of infringements and have successfully repelled such attempts with judicial intervention or negotiations. It is the endeavour of the team to also provide well considered and strategic advice from a legal and regulatory point of view. The team has a unique vertical specifically focused on corporate and securities laws, which is responsible for analysing the changes in such laws and highlighting its impact and implications. It strategizes with the business in discussing the proposed changes emanating therefrom at a product level. This team actively engages with the law-making and regulatory agencies in highlighting the desired changes in the legal and regulatory areas and in providing the industry perspective to the government or its agencies, for example, taking up issues in the implementation of the Significant Beneficial Owners Rules under the Companies Act, 2013, as member of Judicial Reforms Committee. In the functioning of the team there is a shift from being opinion seekers to opinion leaders in their respective areas of domain knowledge and expertise. Senior team members are regular speakers at public events on wide ranging topics such as employment laws, prevention of sexual harassment law, litigations management, information technology and intellectual property rights, among others.

Can you list the team’s significant achievements over the last two years?

This includes achieving GDPR compliance for Kotak group as well as designing and implementing a contract management system for the group. We also provided legal support in documentation, processes, product literature, marketing and publicity including high profile celebrity endorsement agreements for a critical and game changing product – Kotak 811 – the instant online bank account. The team drafted and implemented a provisioning policy duly approved by the board in respect of litigations against the bank in addition to drafting and implementing a policy for competition law compliance for the organisation. We have been developing in-house expertise in GIFT and DIFC transactions and documentation, guiding business teams in responding to DIFC Data Protection Commissioner’s supervisory visits and addressing their concerns through the bank’s policies and procedures in the field of data protection. Supporting fund raising initiatives of the bank.

Are there any “legal tech” products used by the team?

Firstly CLCM, which is an online litigation management system developed in-house by our team. Secondly CMS, an online contract management system and repository, again developed in-house by our team. We also use Advocate Software Module which gives complete details on the empanelled advocates and we are exploring and evaluating E-Sign/ E-Stamp modules for retail customers.

What are the benefits does a consolidated legal team bring?

Firstly the legal team moves from being a “domain expert” to “legal solution provider”. There is also a uniformity in approach both internally and externally with one voice from legal resulting in respect for organisation and uniformity in processes, best practices and operational ease. It also drives cost efficiencies and cost savings, provides a fully scalable model for supporting large businesses and builds on core competencies for better career path in the team.

What additional features do you feel makes the team stand tall above the rest?

We bring flexibility, in that our documentation gets customised to suit the client without compromising on the Bank’s interest and key risks. We invest “more” today, and save and leverage “a lot more” in future as our integration work was focused towards common documentation for multiple asset classes which brings almost all the products under a uniform set of documentation. And we welcome the amicable settlement of disputes. Our recovery is focused towards early and aggressive realisation but equally with an open door for quick settlements and resolutions. Client Relationships are valued despite differences. The majority of our legal work is done in-house with legal’s participation in commercial nuances and knowledge sharing with internal and external clients. In the dynamic and complex commercial environment our work is focused towards comprehensive, detailed and simple contractual relationship with the clients. And we focus on a clear and definite shift from value preservation to value creation.