Legal Pros to Know - Abhijit Mukhopadhyay

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Abhijit is the President (legal) and General Counsel at the Hinduja Group and is based 

at the Group’s headquarters in London. Besides, being a lawyer, he is a Fellow of the 

Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of the UK and the Institute of 

Company Secretaries of India. In India, he has held both senior legal and secretarial 

roles in several multinationals, private and public sector companies. He is also a nonexecutive 

director on the boards of Group companies in five countries. 

In an exclusive discussion with LexPronet, Abhijit opened up about his career and the 

legal profession. Interview excerpts follow: 

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Question: You have had an illustrious career so far, please walk us through your 

career highlights. 

Abhijit: I did my graduation in B.com (Hons) and then completed my LL.B and 

eventually Company Secretaryship at an early age of 24. I also completed my 

Chartered Secretaryship course and a law course, when I came to London 16 years 

ago. Presently I am a fellow member of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators 

of the UK and Company Secretaries of India. 

I started my career as Assistant Company Secretary with Gestetner India Ltd., a 

British multinational company at that time in Calcutta and Delhi. Then I 

joined HMT Ltd., a public-sector conglomerate, in Bangalore, as a Company 

Secretary and Chief Legal Officer. Thereafter, I joined INDAL (Indian Aluminium) 

a Canadian multinational and a subsidiary of ALCAN (one of the world's largest 

producer of aluminium) in the capacity of Company Secretary and Chief Legal 

Officer. 

Abhijit Mukhopadhyay’s Career Timeline 

HMT India Dunlop Ranbaxy 

Gestetner India INDAL (ALCAN Subsidiary) Maruti Udyog Hinduja Group 

I moved on to Dunlop as Vice president – Company Secretary and Chief Legal 

Officer in Calcutta. I finally shifted to Delhi as Chief General Manager - Legal 

and Company Secretary in Maruti Udyog which later on became Suzuki Motor 

India. These were all one step below Board level positions. The last company that 

I worked in India before moving to London was Ranbaxy as its Global Director- 

Legal and Company Secretary. 

I was given the opportunity to work in London as President Legal and General 

Counsel of Hinduja Group, which has been my base for last 16 years in my 

career of 30 years. In my present role, I advise and work very closely with our 

Group worldwide and also India operations. 

Despite the work pressure, I love taking up extracurricular activities. I had been 

the Global Vice Chair of International Chamber of Commerce Commission (ICC) on 

Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution as well as a part of its steering 

committee (2014-2017). It is a prominent and a leading arbitration body in the 

world. I am in the advisory council of the post-graduate/doctoral studies in law 

faculty of Queen Mary University, London. I am also a part of Executive 

Committee of Confederation of Indian Industries in the UK.


Question: You represent a diversified global group with over $15 billion annual 

revenues, 100,000+ employees and presence in over 50 countries. Please enlighten 

us about the challenges you face on a day-to-day basis and from a strategic 

perspective in context of litigation risk? 

Abhijit: The Hinduja Group is a $15 billion group with more than 127,000 people 

operating in 50 countries and business interests in 10 business verticals, like 

automobile, foundry, lubricant, banking, power, media, healthcare, chemicals and 

defence. It is indeed complicated in terms of businesses, complexities, reach, all 

continent presence, exporting in so many countries, with IPRs registered 

worldwide. My past experiences came handy when I decided to join this huge 

group. 

It is a private sector organisation and hence has an entrepreneurial mindset. We 

as a matter of policy avoid litigation since we believe that the hard-earned money 

of shareholders should not go in litigation. Fortunately, barring normal litigation 

we do not have any substantial ongoing litigation. In the organisation, we follow a 

policy that 'try to avoid any kind of litigation'. As a principle, I have been 

emphasising on extensive and appropriate documentation. Most of the times, the 

problem arises because of the insufficient, inadequate and poorly drafted 

documents. If we really prepare good documents, whether it is a contract, any 

general agreement, a JV agreement or any legal instrument, then most of the 

problems can be avoided. 

Another thing that I regularly mention to other colleagues is "try to understand 

the executed document and whenever you find that there are early warning 

signals, in terms of dispute and litigation risks, escalate it so that we can resolve 

the issues in time." 

So yes, do we have litigation? Of course, we have litigation. Do you spend too 

much time on that? No, I don’t spend too much time on that because compared 

to our size, scope of operation, etc., the number of litigations is pretty small 

thanks to the avoid litigation approach that we follow.


Question: Your Group company – IndusInd Bank has enjoyed phenomenal growth. 

What are your views on banking sector reforms in India? What are your 

expectations from lawmakers and RBI with respect to banking sector regulations? 

Abhijit: Banks were in shambles a couple of years 

ago. I think long-time neglect is the main cause for 

creating banking mess in India. Other reason was 

manipulation of public sector banks for political 

gains caused by absence of enforceable 

regulations. 

For some reasons, the regulators, either don’t have 

the power or they don’t want to exercise it. Banks 

are sitting on large NPAs, which is very 

unfortunate. 

Having said that, I find that the present government 

is pretty professional in its approach and in line with 

International standards. It has taken steps towards 

banking sector reform by re-capitalising the banks, 

and by focusing more on the NPAs. 

The government is framing new regulations, and 

new laws, for instance, the insolvency act. It is 

helping banks to move 

things to resolve within 

quicker. I do not expect 

days, but bringing a new 

outlook is refreshing. 

Because ultimately, at the end of the day, 

if you don’t have proper judicial system, bringing 

law in itself is not enough. In India, you have 

now got the commercial court and it takes a lot 

of time to resolve commercial issues. 

Now if you see outside India in places like the 

UK, the main advantage is that the judicial system 

is very quick. If you go in for adjudication or some 

kind of Dispute Redressal Mechanism in London, 

things are very fast compared with India. I am 

quite hopeful that things will improve if this kind of 

tempo and reform continues in India.


Question: What have been the standout projects that you’ve had involvement 

with at Hinduja Group? 

Abhijit: The group is primarily growing in two ways. 

Firstly, in existing verticals: with linear growth with new projects and factories. For 

instance, Group's flagship company - Ashok Leyland, is putting up different plants 

not only in India but also abroad, particularly, in African countries. 

Secondly, by investing in greenfield projects. The new projects which I can talk 

about, are: 

• Power plant in Vizag in India. It is a two-billion-dollar plant and has started 

generating around 1040 MW of electricity. 

• An iconic hotel project in London. We have bought an iconic building which 

will be converted into a hotel-cum-residential complex with an investment 

worth $1.4 billion. 

• Acquisition of Houghton International in the US. It is one of the largest 

speciality chemical manufacturer in the world which is now merged with one 

of the largest chemical companies in the world – Quaker Chemical. 

I must also caution you that the Group’s growth is under leveraged. Hinduja family 

does not believe in borrowing and investing. Leverage is taken cautiously because 

the group does not want to jeopardize the interest of 127000 people working 

within the organisation. To just give an example of prudence followed within the 

group, there is not a single incident where any instalment of loan (business and 

commercial) was not paid in the last 100 years in the history of the group. This is 

imbibed in the group’s culture. We may be going slow but we are going strong. 

Hinduja National Power Corporation Limited, set up a greenfield 

1,040 thermal power plant in Andhra Pradesh, India. The Hinduja 

Group has a vision to create generation capacity of 10,000 MW over 

the next few years with an expected investment of $12–14 billion 

Hinduja Group bought the iconic Winston Churchill's iconic old war 

office building in partnership with a Spanish industrial company 

Obrascon Huarte Lain Desarrollos (OHLD) to restore and redevelop 

it into a five-star hotel and residential apartments. 

Hinduja Group’s company, Gulf Oil acquired 100% stake in 

Houghton International Inc for $1,045 million in 2012. In early 2017, 

Houghton International entered into a definitive agreement to 

combine with Quaker Chemical to create a global leader in the 

process fluids and chemical specialties space.


Question: How do you manage litigation in your organization? 

Abhijit: When compared to the size of the group, the proportion of litigation is 

quite small. Also, the current litigation is normal in nature. Considering that we 

operate in many countries, we have litigation in many countries, particularly in 

IPR. 

Whenever we require law firms for dispute redressal, I help the business verticals. 

At the Headquarters, we do not have any litigation. It is generally somewhere 

down the business. The businesses are independent entities and look for a good 

law firm. If the dispute is international or they need an international law firm, I 

help them selecting the law firm because I know many law firms around the world 

with whom I have daily contact. The day to day litigation is monitored by the 

business group. I monitor at the top level as my reporting is directly to the 

Hinduja family. Having said that, I will be involved in monitoring key matters or 

where monitoring from headquarter is required. Otherwise the business groups 

are independent enough to take care of their matters.


3 

Expectations from 

External Counsels 

1. Competency 

2. Care 

3. Costs (reasonable) 

Question: What are your expectations from an ideal external counsel/law firm? 

Abhijit: I have spoken and written on this topic all over the world. Honestly 

speaking, this is a subject which keeps coming all the time. My expectations are 

very clear, I believe in 3 Cs – Competency, Care and Cost, in that order. 

Competency: Law firms should be business minded and should be able to 

understand client’s commercial problems. They should come up with clear, 

commercial and practical solution. They should definitely think out of the box. 

Care: Law firm should work like a team. External counsels must work like an 

extended arm of the group's legal department. They shouldn’t work like an 

outsider. To quote an example, I am currently working with half a dozen global law 

Firms for our current issues. I talk to them on daily basis, providing all my 

resources and required 

information. They know where the shoe pinches. My modus operandi is to keep 

them informed, and then expect them to be a part of our success, solution or 

problem. 

Cost: With regards to fees, there are different variety of fee structures that we 

follow. Fortunately, we don’t have law firms on panel. We know a lot of law firms 

from across the globe. We scout for firms afresh whenever the requirement comes. 

This practice keeps us abreast with the changes in the fee structure and helps in 

negotiating fee. We have fixed fee or milestone-based fee even in litigation. 

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Legal Pros to Know - Abhijit Mukhopadhyay

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