Legal Era Global Achievers Awards 2024: Recognising Leading Cross-Border India Desk Lawyers for their impeccable work

Legal Era hosted its flagship 13th Annual India Conclave & Awards 2024, an unprecedented gathering of legal expertise at The Lalit, Mumbai. The Conclave saw 500+ professionals participate from 5+ countries and pan-India.

On day 2 of the Annual India Conclave, 23rd August 2024, Legal Era hosted the Global Achievers Awards, 2024, “Recognizing Cross-Border (India Desk) Lawyers for their Legal Finesse, Innovation & Accomplishments.”

The awardees were the finest India Desk Lawyers with cross-border skills leading inbound and outbound legal work while working with Indian clients in Indian geographies. They have their ears to the ground, understand the nuances of cross-geographic law and interplay, cultural differences in practices in multiple jurisdictions, and skilfully weave legal compliance with pragmatic decision-making advisory.

The Awards began with a warm welcome to the spectrum of attendees — international law firms’ partners, legal industry stalwarts of Indian and non-Indian origin, the decision makers of India Inc., distinguished jurists, legal scholars, and influential legal practitioners from diverse jurisdictions.

The on-stage moments and felicitations grew in stature with the August presence of Gourab Banerji, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India and Janak Dwarkadas, Senior Counsel, Bombay High Court handing over the Awards and Trophies to the beaming achievers.

A truly international experience, the Legal Era Cross Global Achievers Awards have been immensely appreciated since the maiden edition of 2021, celebrating cross-border lawyers with the distinctive value proposition of placing India on the global map as a business-friendly destination and an MFN for investments. In this confluence of world markets, regional economic arrangements, and societies, Legal Era has always taken an innovative approach towards community building & Legal Education, Research, and Advocacy — and has grown to become a mega global think tank of expert professionals in business and law.

Here is the list of Top Cross-Border Lawyers awarded at the Legal Era Global Achievers Awards 2024.

CATEGORY	WINNER NAME
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Dispute Resolution	Dr. Daniel H. Sharma, Partner, DLA Piper
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Banking & Finance	Debopam Dutta, Head - India Desk, Trowers & Hamlins
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Capital Market	Jamie Benson, Director and Head of the U.S. Capital Markets Practice and India Practice, Duane Morris & Selvam
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Competition	Kala Anandarajah, Partner, Head, Competition & Antitrust and Trade, Rajah & Tann
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Green Energy	Karthik Kumar, Partner, Orrick
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Information Technology	Kit Burden, Partner, DLA Piper
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Infra & Energy	Priyank Srivastava, Director, Duane Morris & Selvam
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Corporate	Sivanesan Sivagnanaratnam, Senior Partner, Dentons Rodyk & Davidson
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Technology Lawyer	Sonia Baldia, Partner, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Private Client	Vikna Rajah, Executive Committee Partner & Head Tax, Trust & Private Wealth, Rajah & Tann
Cross Border Lawyer of the Year - Dispute Resolution	Vikram Nair, Deputy Head, Dispute Resolution, Rajah & Tann

Dr. Daniel H. Sharma specializes in international arbitration and commercial law disputes before state courts. He has experience across a number of jurisdictions and sectors, with a particular focus on financial services, energy/infrastructure and technology matters. His experience also includes handling disputes in the areas of aviation, automotive, life sciences and ESG matters.

Daniel regularly acts for private companies as well as governments, governmental institutions and international organisations and advises his clients with regard to ad hoc and institutional arbitrations in English, French and German under a wide range of rules, including ICC, SIAC, DIS, CIETAC, UNCITRAL and ICSID. He also acts as arbitrator in ad hoc and institutional arbitration proceedings. In addition, Daniel is also well-versed in handling disputes related to antitrust issues. He speaks frequently at conferences and publishes regularly on arbitration law, supply chain, human rights issues and related topics in various leading German and international legal journals.

Debopam Dutta has extensive experience in the area of Banking & Finance in the international as well as the Indian domestic markets. Having previously worked in India, Singapore, London and Tokyo, Debopam leads the firm's India Desk. With in-depth knowledge of the Indian market and regulatory climate, he is able to advise clients on how to successfully implement their India-focussed transactions.

He advises banks, financial institutions, agents, real estate investment trusts, sponsors, funds and multinational companies across the GCC, South Asia and South-East Asia spanning across a broad range of industries and asset classes on a wide range of domestic and cross-border transactions with particular focus on corporate finance, real estate finance, project & infrastructure finance, acquisition finance, trade finance, Islamic finance, debt capital markets & structured finance, debt restructuring and regulatory issues. In addition, Debopam regularly assists clients with credit agreement compliance concerns, amendments, waivers and consents on financing documents, and routine regulatory compliance issues. Besides acting as lenders’ or investors’ counsel, Debopam has substantial experience in representing borrowers and issuers. He is being increasingly sought out for his expertise in the space of ESG and green financing in the GCC and is a regular speaker at conferences and events in this area.

Jamie A. Benson is the Head of Duane Morris & Selvam's U.S. Capital Markets, U.S. Venture Capital and India Practices. He has more than 25 years of experience and has advised on more than 100 securities offerings throughout the world with total proceeds of approximately US$25 billion. Having worked on more than 70 offerings by Indian issuers since 2004, Jamie is one of the leading international legal counsels advising on securities offerings by Indian issuers. He is currently based in Singapore and has previously worked in New York, Sydney and London.

Jamie's experience includes advising on: equity offerings (public offerings and private placements); high-yield, convertible and investment-grade bond offerings; debt private placements; SEC-registered equity and debt offerings; mergers and acquisitions of both U.S. and non-U.S. public companies; going private transactions; SEC reporting obligations; compliance with U.S. broker-dealer laws; general corporate and commercial law matters; and FCPA matters. Jamie has a wide range of industry experience, including working on deals involving companies in the following industries: aviation; banking; beer and wine; business process outsourcing; cable television; construction; electricity transmission and distribution; film production; gambling; healthcare, infrastructure; jewelry; insurance; mining; non-banking financial companies (NBFCs); oil and gas; print media; property; telecommunications; television broadcasting; and toll roads.

Kala Anandarajah heads the Competition & Antitrust and Trade Practice. Always a forerunner in niche areas of the law, her key practice areas are Competition (merger control, cartels, investigations, etc), Trade (export controls, FTAs, sanctions etc), and Consumer Protection. She has strong secondary practices in Employment, Environmental (EHS) & Sustainability (ESG), Corporate Governance and Telco/Media Laws, where she has formidable accolades. She has had many firsts in her career, handling difficult and complex matters, demystifying and simplifying issues to achieve the clients’ aim. Lauded by clients for her "unrivalled knowledge and understanding of the law" and her unique ability "to understand very complicated businesses and their likely reactions," she is also praised as a "business-focused and client-oriented attorney who balances her expertise with practical experience." Clients commend her "solid, can-do attitude" and note that she is "very good at working out a strategic solution to a legal problem," describing her as "one of the few practitioners truly at the cutting edge." Additionally, she is recognized for being "very dedicated, quick, and precise," and is described as "super switched-on" with a "very wide vision." As a Thought Leader in competition law, she "earns high praise from peers," who regard her as "extremely dynamic, inspiring, and sharp" and as "a lawyer who knows everything and is extremely well-rounded."

Karthik Kumar is an experienced project development, acquisition and finance lawyer who advises clients on novel and complex, high-profile renewable energy and infrastructure projectsin the Asia-Pacific region. Karthik has over two decades of experience acting for investors, developers, lendersand sponsors on high-profile M&A, project development and infrastructure projects in the Asia Pacific region with a strong focus on India. He has particular expertise in the renewable energysector, having acted on significant Indian transactions in the solar, wind and EV sectors in India.

He is highly regarded in the Indian market for his in-depth regulatory knowledge and significant transactional experience. Clients laud him for his commercial approach and deep regional background.

Karthik has a strong focus on the renewable energy sector with extensive experience in solar, onshore and offshore wind, biomass, and waste-to-energy projects across the region. Karthik ishighly regarded in the market for his in-depth regulatory knowledge and significant transactional experience. Clients laud him for his commercial approach and deep regional background. He has extensive experience advising developers, sponsors, borrowers and financial institutions, including banks and multilateral lending institutions, on a wide range of renewable energy projects in jurisdictions such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Philippines, China and Australia.

Kit Burden advises clients in the areas of outsourcing and complex technology transactions, advising both users and suppliers of IT, and outsourcing services and in relation to all aspects of the procurement process. His work ordinarily involves him on business critical projects frequently valued in the hundreds of millions of pounds.

Major clients he advises include UBS, Ericsson, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Rolls Royce, HCL Technologies, Amadeus and Liva Nova.

Priyank Srivastava is a Director in the Corporate Energy practices with over 15 years’ experience advising in the energy, Project Development/Infrastructure/P3 sector and Disputes practice. Priyank co-heads the India Practice Group focuses his practice on upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas/LNG matters and the power sector. Having worked for over eight years at India’s largest exploration and production company, he is familiar with all the transactional aspects of global energy projects.

A client has provided the following testimonial about Priyank: “We have known Priyank for almost a decade now. We have seen him handle Energy, Oil & Gas matters and a large variety of corporate matters with the highest degree of professionalism. Priyank is an excellent lawyer and carries a wide scope of commercial sense, wisdom and experience. Lawyers working in the oil & gas sector require both legal regulatory as well as industry experience, and Priyank is one of the rare professional lawyers, having the combination of both.”

Sivanesan Sivagnanaratnam is a Senior Partner and Head of Dentons Rodyk's Corporate practice group. He is also Co-Head of the Environment, Natural Resources & Sustainability practice, Venture Tech & Emerging Growth Companies practice and the Singapore-India relationship partner. Sivanesan's primary areas of practice include mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganisations and restructurings, venture capital, venture technology, investment funds and general corporate commercial matters. He has advised several fund managers, venture capital funds, founders, start-ups and companies on investment deals.

Sivanesan's international work includes cross-border and regional transactions, mergers and acquisitions, VC/PE investment deals in South East Asia, India, China, Japan, Europe, Australia and USA. He has worked with local and foreign clients in establishing businesses in Singapore and the region, transactional matters, foreign direct investment, liaising with regional counsel and establishing effective corporate structures for global operations. He is widely regarded as an authority on corporate governance and venture capital.

Sonia Baldia is a Partner in Kilpatrick Townsend’s commercial and technology transactions practice in Washington DC, and leads the firm’s India practice. She is a highly regarded, dually qualified lawyer with bar admissions in the US and India.

Sonia has more than 20 years of experience with a keen focus on US-India cross-border matters, including FDI, strategic acquisitions, joint ventures, intellectual property protection, IT and business process outsourcing, establishing subsidiaries for software development, and advising on manufacturing and supply chains in India. She also advises Indian corporates on global expansion and inbound investments into the US market. Sonia grew up in India and earned a law degree there before earning additional law degrees in the US. She speaks fluent Hindi and is very knowledgeable about navigating the business and cultural environment in India.

Vikna Rajah is is an Equity Partner, Executive Management Committee member and Head of the Tax, Trust & Private Client Department at Rajah & Tann (Singapore) LLP. Vikna advises clients on complex income tax, GST, stamp duty, property tax and tax treaty issues, and specialises in contentious civil tax disputes with IRAS, tax structuring and criminal tax litigation. He has a track record of successfully and effectively resolving multi-million-dollar disputes with IRAS and is regularly instructed by multi-national companies, other toptier law firms and Big 4 accounting firms. He is praised in legal directories as being “best of the best”, an “experienced litigator” with “extensive tax knowledge”, and “an extremely intelligent man” who is “excellent to work with”. He combines “very deep technical expertise with acute commercial acumen”, while “carefully listening to his clients and putting himself in their shoes”, with the ability to “make the impossible possible”

Vikram Nair is qualified in Singapore and English law and has more than 15 years of experiencein international arbitration (SIAC, ICC & ad hoc) and Singapore Supreme Court litigation (trialand appellate).

He is experienced in obtaining and resisting urgent interim relief applications, including injunctions, both in the Singapore courts and in emergency arbitrations. He is skilled in handling technical experts in contentious valuations of companies and assets.

He regularly advises on complex multi-jurisdictional disputes including shareholder and JV matters, commercial agreements, construction, employment, insolvency and tort.

He has advised clients in many sectors including banking, finance, oil & gas, manufacturing, mining, logistics, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, fast moving consumer goods and property development.

Vikram read law at Cambridge University and previously worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. He also serves as a Member of Parliament for Sembawang GRC in Singapore.