Area of Practice

Banking & Finance

The Practice

AQUILAW’s Banking & Finance practice advises banks, non-banking financial companies, financial institutions, funds and corporate borrowers across the full spectrum of lending, financing and regulatory work. Our team combines deep transactional experience with an on-ground understanding of the Indian banking and financial regulatory landscape, allowing us to structure and document financings that are commercially workable and regulatorily sound. We act for both lenders and borrowers, giving us a balanced, practical perspective on risk allocation, security structuring and enforcement.

Our work spans the entire life cycle of a financing, from structuring, documentation and due diligence at the outset, through to security creation, perfection and, where required, restructuring or enforcement. We advise on bilateral and syndicated facilities, acquisition and project finance, real estate and trade finance, securitisation and stressed asset resolution, working closely with our corporate, real estate, tax and dispute resolution teams to deliver integrated, end-to-end advice.

Key Service Offerings

Structuring, documentation and legal due diligence for bilateral and syndicated corporate loan facilities and external commercial borrowings (ECBs).
Acquisition finance, including financing of mergers, buyouts, takeovers and strategic investments.
Structuring and documentation of project and infrastructure financings.
Real estate construction and development finance, lease-rental discounting (LRD) and loan-against-property structuring.
Structuring of domestic and international trade finance, including letters of credit, bank guarantees and factoring.
Securitisation and direct-assignment transactions, including advice under the RBI securitisation and transfer-of-loan-exposure directions.
Restructuring, stressed-debt recovery strategy, enforcement of security and SARFAESI action, DRT proceedings and banking litigation.
IBC advisory and resolution plans from a lender’s perspective.
Banking and financial-sector regulatory advisory, including engagement with the RBI and other regulators.

The Aquilaw Advantage

What sets AQUILAW apart on banking and finance mandates is the ability of our partner-led teams to move fluidly between transactional and contentious work, so the same team that structures a facility is equally at home enforcing security or advising on recovery if a loan turns stressed. Our lawyers bring hands-on regulatory familiarity, including former senior banking professionals within the firm, which allows us to anticipate practical, on-ground issues that purely legal advice can miss. Backed by a pan-India presence, we give banks, financial institutions and corporate clients consistent, on-ground support across the country’s key commercial centres, at every stage of the lending relationship.

The team navigate and facilitate complex commercial deals within tight timelines and readily provide innovative commercial solutions to overcome negotiation hurdles.