Rajesh Chavda, who had been working at IDFC Alternatives as a director in India until January of this year, has joined Essar Oil (UK) Limited as a senior legal adviser.

He is based at Essar Oil’s offices near the second largest crude oil refinery in the UK, in Stanlow, near Liverpool.

Chavda is reporting directly to the company’s CFO. “I'm going to be working with the finance team, mainly,“ he explained.

His work focuses on financial contracts, loans, inventory management, commercial contracts, corporate work and compliance.

He said that he would be working primarily with UK law firms, as well as seeking some advice from offshore jurisdictions, but not so much with Indian law firms.

He is the first full-time lawyer based in the refinery, though one senior consultant is also working for the company in London.

Chavda is a 2000 NLSIU Bangalore graduate with a Columbia Law School LLM, who had worked at Reliance Industries’ in-house team before joining Herbert Smith in London in 2007.

In 2015 he returned to India to join Luthra & Luthra as a partner.