Vaibhav Choukse
Partner and Head of Practice
JSA
Vaibhav is heading the Firm’s Competition Law Practice and has been practicing competition law since its inception in India. He focuses on complex enforcement and merger control cases and represents and advises clients on a broad range of competition law issues spanning across several sectors. He has handled several high-profile competition litigations in various fora including the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the appellate courts.
On the enforcement side, Vaibhav routinely advises leading multinational and industry associations on matters ranging from cartel, leniency, dawn raids, abuse of dominance, commercial agreements to competition compliance mandates. On the cartel enforcement front, recently, he has successfully defended several global auto-component manufacturers, a global multiplex operator and a paper manufacturer in an alleged price fixing cartel. Presently, he is advising a global seed company in an alleged price fixing cartel and vertical restraint case before the CCI. On the abuse of dominance front, he is presently advising Nuziveedu Seeds, India’s largest seed company in a case filed by it against Monsanto Company alleging excessive prices, unfair terms & conditions and leveraging.
On the merger control side, Vaibhav has advised and obtained approvals for complex transactions in both the Form I and Form II notifications including IBM/ Kyndryl Holdings, Multiples Private Equity/ BDR Pharma, TVS Group restructuring, Ford Motor Company/ Mahindra & Mahindra, Goldman Sachs/ ReNew Power (SPAC), Teleperformance/ Intelenet and Trafigura/ Essar Oil etc.
Vaibhav has authored numerous articles in competition law journals & leading newspapers and is a frequent speaker on all antitrust issues in various fora. He is recognised as one of India’s leading competition lawyers.
Vaibhav holds a master’s degree in competition law from Kings College, London, where he has had the good fortune of receiving tutelage from Prof. Richard Whish QC (Hon) in EU Competition Law. Prior to joining the firm, he has worked with in the competition law practice of Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co.