About

Can you explain how the legal team is structured and highlight key individuals within the department?

The Nuvoco legal team is a close knitted team headed by general counsel Sandeep Chowdhury. The other members of the team are, assistant vice president of legal S.B.B. Ali, deputy managers of legal Esha Chakravarty and Kamlesh Asher; senior manager for legal Subhadeep Bhowmik, as well as assistant managers of legal, Dhruba Bhattacharya and Kiran Sharma. The team has been proactively creating awareness amongst all the operations and business functions regarding the importance of statutory compliances to ensure that all the operations and business functions are carried out in accordance with the extant statutory requirements. The legal team is aggressively involved in policy implementation and adherence exercises by organising regular training sessions on extant legal and statutory requirements; as enunciated in various corporate compliance policies of the company to all the relevant stakeholders at plant as well as corporate office levels for smoother functioning of the business and with an aim of achieving 100% compliance. The team is driven by the mission of developing Nuvoco as the leading building materials company delivering superior performance. With a view to educate employees regarding judgments that has a bearing on the business/operational functions and related compliances, the legal department has commenced circulating quarterly legal newsletter that explains the critical rulings across different areas of laws in a simple and lucid manner. The legal department received overwhelming response from all the company stakeholders as regards quarterly newsletter.

What are the most significant activities that your legal team has been involved with recently?

The Nuvoco legal team is aggressively contesting various high stake litigations to protect the interest of the company. Below is a brief summary of certain high stake litigation matters that are of immense significance to the company. First, the Supreme Court (SC) banned the use of pet coke by all industries in Rajasthan, Upper Pradash, Haryana and Delhi NCR due to increases in pollution. Subsequent to a review petition filed by the company, the SC allowed only the cement industry to use pet coke and the government has been accordingly directed to frame necessary rules pertaining to import of pet coke. Second, after amendments to MMDR Act 2015, the provisions of District Mineral Fund (DMF) and National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) were introduced. However, the SC quashed the government notification for DMF and NMET contribution with retrospective effect. This was commercially beneficial to the company Third, LOI pertaining to a mining lease at Jaisalmer, Rajasthan was cancelled by the State Government of Rajasthan. The said order was challenged by the company. The Rajasthan High Court was pleased to allow our writ petition and directed the state government to execute the mining lease within three months from the date of the order. Fourth, a mining lease of the company at Chhattisgarh was declared lapsed. An application was filed for revival of said mining lease before the State Government which was allowed and a fresh mining lease has been executed in favour of the company.

Fifth, JK Lakshmi cement launched its cement in Rajasthan under the brand name “Concreta” which is deceptively similar to our brand “Concreto”. The Delhi High Court upon our suit granted the interim stay order against JK Cement and others in this case and subsequently the stay has been confirmed as absolute. Lastly, the legal team has been aggressively involved in recovering payments from the defaulting parties of the RMX and Aggregates division. An amount of Rs 18.50 crores has been collected from defaulting customers through legal action over a period of two years. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016 has also been very effective over the past two years for speedy resolutions of old overdue matters.

What will be Nuvoco’s main focus for the next 12 months and how does the team intend to assist with this?

First, the legal department is working towards implementing a compliance platform so as to streamline compliance record maintenance, tracking and renewal in a time bound manner. This will definitely help the company to operate in accordance with all the statutory requirements by ensuring the necessary actions are taken to monitor the license/statutory approval status for maintenance and renewals. The department is also working towards implementing a detailed legal contract management and audit plan to effectively monitor legal compliances, be it statutory or contractual across the plant and corporate office level.

How has the team harnessed technology to improve output or drive efficiencies?

The team has taken several steps in harnessing technology so as to effectively manage and streamline the legal function. To this end, we have taken steps to implement an online litigation platform for effectively managing all litigation matters. The implementation of this platform has enabled a seamless transition from manual record maintenance to a cloud based platform. Further, features such as auto-generated updates have helped us save time and consequentially smoothen the arduous task of record up keep. The team has also been an ardent user of an online legal case repository, Manupatra that contains exhaustive a legal database across the country under one roof. The team is also providing web based training and certification to all employees across the country in the domain of POSH, competition law and other statutory compliances.

Can you sum up the team’s ethos?

The legal team has plays an indispensable role in effectively manging the risks of the company. The Nuvoco legal team has ingrained the moot operating philosophy of “doing right the first time” in true letter and spirit by proactively creating a culture of awareness and compliance. At Nuvoco, the legal team continuously strives to provide appropriate legal advice in-house on a diverse range of substantive and procedural questions of law arising in the smooth functioning of the business. The team believes in aligning its team goals with that of the organisation’s goals thereby giving clarity of purpose. Collaboration, care and team work being the core values, the legal team is committed to live by the same while playing their respective roles and responsibilities. The team also enables and fosters individual decision-making at each and every level thus building a culture based on trust and respect towards each individual.