In this inaugural list, we spotlight India’s top TMT/fintech lawyers, who have been selected based on their work, clients’ recommendations, and feedback from the market. A few of the lawyers have been profiled.
Rishi Anand Arunabh Choudhary Rahul Dhote Aditi Joshi Nikhil Krishnamurthy Charanya Lakshmikumaran Nidhish Mehrotra Vineetha MG Chandrima Mitra Ameet B. Naik Nikhil Narendran Ashima Obhan Naresh Pareek Prashant Phillips Priya Rao Anushree Rauta Majid Afsar Siddiqi Alok Sonker Vivek Sriram Dhruv Suri Kunal Tandon Rajesh Vellakkat Harsh Walia |
Rahul Dhote, founding partner, Literati Juris
Rahul Dhote is a founding partner of Literati Juris, a full-service firm founded two years ago along with Ragini Shah.
Dhote, who has over a decade of experience in IP, technology, media and entertainment, telecommunications and allied practice areas, works alongside a team of partners, lawyers, and patent agents.
Literati Juris, headquartered in Mumbai, has seen rapid expansion, establishing offices in three other major cities, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara, to provide full-service legal services to clients across a range of practice areas. Dhote has worked to develop a broader global network for the firm, which caters to clients’ needs and spans more than 60 countries.
Along with his counsel, Dhote supports clients across sectors and industries as diverse as pharmaceuticals and life sciences, IT and e-commerce, start-ups, FMCGs, chemicals, infrastructure, automotive, electronics, technology, etc., advising businesses at each stage of their growth involving acquisition, exploitation, maintenance, protection and enforcement of their legal rights.
Dhote has also represented clients before the Supreme Court, district courts, high courts, NCLT, the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB), TDSAT, patent and trademark offices. He is a part of several land-mark orders in IP and TMT space and has been recognised in his field, winning several awards.
Nikhil Krishnamurthy, senior partner, K Law
A senior partner at Krishnamurthy & Co (K Law), Nikhil Krishnamurthy has specialized over the past two decades in intellectual property (IP) litigation, prosecution, licensing, and enforcement.
Ranked amongst the top 15 IP lawyers in India by Asian Legal Business in 2020, Krishnamurthy has earned his reputation by representing a wide array of clients in the media and entertainment and information technology industries. He has also managed the IP enforcement campaigns of various luxury and pharmaceutical brands and software companies.
Krishnamurthy’s expertise in IP has seen him write extensively on issues such as IP licensing, copyright, collective licensing at the ISP level, mechanical reproduction rights, performing rights and artists’ resale share rights.
In terms of IT matters, Krishnamurthy has taken on cases involving theft of trade secrets and confidential information, intermediary liability, take-down notices, domain names disputes, phishing, framing, linking and deployment of web-crawlers in breach of terms of use.
Krishnamurthy has negotiated several successful settlements in complex IP litigations and represented several big-name clients.
Says one client: “We respect him a lot. His forte has always been copy-right law, and he is also very good on the media and technology side of things.”
Ashima Obhan, senior partner, Obhan & Associates
Ashima Obhan is a senior partner at Obhan & Associates and heads its corporate and mergers & acquisitions practice, while keeping active in finance and real estate.
With more than 17 years of experience, Obhan has dealt with corporate law issues, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions, including domestic and cross border deals involving assets or share sales, option arrangements, international joint venture transactions and group re-organisations.
Obhan has represented both sellers and buyers in complex transactions in various business sectors. She has advised various multinational corporations and private equity funds in relation to foreign investment into India.
She is also a co-author of Data Protection Laws Demystified, published in October 2019. The book analyses the EU GDPR and its impact on Indian businesses.
Some of her key clients include HarperCollins Publishers India, Steer Engineering, Penguin India, and Forest Essentials Pearson India
Madhumita Ranjan, legal head of Penguin India, says that “Obhan and Associates’ advice and services to us have been very effective, especially because of their keen understanding of the clients’ business and operations. We enjoy working with Partner Ashima Obhan and have found her to be greatly accessible and very reliable on the law as well as on transaction advice.”
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