George Varghese

Partner

George Varghese is a Partner in the Dispute Resolution Practice with over a decade of extensive legal experience supporting a broad range of multi-national and Indian companies on commercial engagements, especially relating to pre-dispute risk management and advisory, and guiding them through disputes before Indian courts as well as before international and domestic arbitral tribunals.

George has previously advised various public sector lenders, central government ministries, private equity funds, sports bodies, and large multinational and domestic conglomerates on the full life cycle of disputes across India. George’s expertise includes disputes relating to infrastructure and projects, energy, corporate insolvency, finance, white collar crime, and environmental matters.

‍

Education

B.A. LLB (Hons.), National University of Juridical Sciences, 2012

‍

Expertise

Dispute Resolution

Dispute Resolution / Litigation

Arbitration

Awards

Recognized as India's Rising Star 2021 by Asian Legal Business.

Work Highlights

Successfully represented a consortium of public sector lenders, led by the SBI Limited and IDBI Limited, in a USD 250 mn claim against the Government of Haryana. The case is significant because this is the first time Indian lenders successfully recovered their investment in a project from the government (under a substitution agreement) and not from the concessionaire.

Represented BCCI, the world’s largest cricket body, in a case against Kochi Cricket Private Limited, in which the Supreme Court of India upheld the prospective applicability of the 2015 amendments to the Indian Arbitration Act. The seminal judgment is reported at BCCI v. Kochi Cricket Private Limited (2018) 6 SCC 287.

Represented the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in proceedings under the Companies Act against the erstwhile auditors and directors of the IL&FS group. The proceedings, which encompassed multiple fora including the Supreme Court, Bombay High Court and National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, relate to India’s largest financial scam involving the IL&FS group.

Advised International Finance Corporation (IFC) as an expert on Indian environmental and tort law before the Washington DC circuit court in an environmental suit filed against IFC in relation to the TATA Mundra project, Gujarat. An interim decision by the US Supreme Court regarding IFC’s immunity is reported at Jam v. International Finance Corp. 586 US (2019).

Advised the top management of one of India’s largest conglomerates with high level strategy relating to COVID-19 and force majeure protocols to be adopted across all group companies’ vendor contracts and in critical path projects.

‍