Multinationals from a diverse range of sectors regularly instruct Spice Route Legal’s dedicated data protection, privacy, and cybersecurity team for advice across the full gamut of advisory, regulatory, and contentious matters. The Bengaluru-based team is led by co-founder Mathew Chacko, a seasoned data privacy specialist with strength in complex cross-border data protection mandates and regulatory issues, as well as data-related disputes. Aadya Misra, who is now a counsel, advises clients on emerging technologies, regulatory advisory matters, and incident reports, and has particular expertise handling major financial services data transfers from the EU to India, following the Schrems II decision. On the cybersecurity front, the team has seen increased activity concerning data breach response mandates.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • 'Mathew Chacko and Aadya Misra stand out. Both are collaborative and deeply knowledgeable about the law. What more can one want?'
  • 'The SRL team, led by Mathew Chacko, is able to keep the legal objectives, the letter of the law and technological change in focus while crafting an opinion or solution. They are willing to debate, define the issues and seek answers collaboratively with the client, which is a unique capability in this team.'
  • 'The team has been fantastic to work with. They are eager and curious about this field.'
  • 'Expertise, business understanding, practical approach, accommodation of reasonable client requests. It is a pleasure to work with them.'
  • 'Spice Route Legal is very practical and methodical in its approach to the issues. They have clear knowledge of the subject and are efficient in handling the issues which were presented to them.'

Key clients

  • 3M
  • Adobe Inc.
  • Air India
  • Airtel
  • Bayer
  • Dell
  • Disney
  • Fiserv
  • HDFC Bank
  • Hewlett Packard
  • ICICI Bank
  • Meta Inc.
  • Microsoft
  • Talview Inc.
  • Zoom
  • BYJU’s
  • Gameopedia
  • Ingka
  • John Lewis Partners
  • Livspace
  • Lupin
  • Moneyview
  • Northern Arc
  • Proximie
  • Qure.Ai
  • Sandvine
  • SHL Group
  • Srijan Technologies
  • Stryker
  • Tanla Platforms
  • Tricog Health
  • Urban Company
  • Warner Bros
  • Workday

Work highlights

  • Advised Singapore-based Livspace on data transfer analysis and compliance across India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.
  • Assisted Northern Arc with ensuring that the data processing activities comply with the Reserve Bank of India’s new digital lending requirements and in developing procedures to ensure that its various partners in the digital lending ecosystem also do so.
  • Assisted Talview Inc. with a 40-jurisdiction data protection compliance assessment to assess regulatory and business risks of offering AI-powered HR-tech video interview tools on a global scale.

Lawyers

Leading associates
Leading associates with regular involvement in their team's key work, and recognition from peers or clients as being ones to watch.
Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Mathew Chacko

Other key lawyers

Aadya Misra, Ankita Hariramani, Shambhavi Mishra