Director/Head - Legal - NBFC

Role: Director / Head - Legal

Location: Mumbai

About the company:

The client is a Non-Banking Finance Company registered under Section 45-IA of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 categorized as Non-Deposit-taking-systematically Important (NBFC-ND-SI) and a fast growing financial service provider in India. The client's primary business activities are into Asset Financing and Lending business.

The Wholesale Lending Business segment provides specialized and holistic solutions to Indian corporate helping them build and grow their businesses with initial funding, mezzanine financing, acquisition financing etc. The client focusus on products in the structured credit space backed by adequate collaterals and cash flows to build a secured and quality wholesale lending portfolio.

Roles & Responsibilities:

Main area of work would involve Litigation and drafting of legal documents for extending loans (Corporate & SME both). S/he will be assisted by a team of three persons (one for corporate lending; another for SME and third for litigation).

The detailed role and responsibilities are highlighted here under:

Litigation

- National Manager Legal, handling litigation for the NBFC throughout India.

- Involved in advising the Collection and Recovery teams spread over multiple locations in India

- Part of the Central Legal Unit (Collection, Logistics and Intelligence Cell)

- Drafting and vetting of Agreements, Deeds, Settlements and consent terms

- Advising the team on the strategy to be adopted for litigation in crucial cases

- Discussions with the legal retainers and evaluation of retainers

- Appointment and Empanelment of advocates

- Sanctioning of legal expense and professional fees of lawyers

- Monitoring of the litigation portfolio and maintaining good rate of recovery

- Crisis management in the event of arrest and adverse media campaigns against the NBFC on legal issues.

- Imparting legal training to the entire Collection / Legal team throughout India, for creating basic legal awareness.

- Liaison with Banking Regulatory Authorities like Office of Banking Ombudsman and Department of Banking Supervision, Reserve Bank of India.

- Identifying and suggesting process changes for effective legal recourse and recovery

- Management of the litigation portfolio (for and against cases) throughout India.

Documentation:

- Providing opinion/inputs to the Credit Underwriting Team / Management on the acceptability of the documents or deficiencies/ risks in the documents

- Providing opinion to the Credit Underwriting Team / Management on the mortgage ability of the land / property in question and the nature of mortgage to be created to secure the proposed lending

- Coordinating with various clients for collection of legal documents from them (Title documents, Plan approvals, Government approvals, SRA documents, Joint Development Agreements, Tenant Settlement Agreements, Lease Agreements, Search Reports etc.) required to be studied to get an understanding on the legality / sufficiency of approvals for the project (s) under consideration for lending opportunities.

- Verification/Scrutiny/Vetting of documents related mainly to Real Estate Projects under consideration for lending opportunities

- Drafting / Modification of various loan agreements / undertakings to secure various lending transactions

- Providing list of documents required to create valid mortgage /security

- Effecting security / mortgage creation / charge creation and execution of various loan documents

Requirements and Qualifications:

- Masters degree in law

- Minimum 15+ years of relevant work experience in a lending environment

Salary Range: Rs 60-80 Lacs + Variable