Arun S. Prabhu

He specialises in offering sector specific, cutting edge advice in relation to technology to clients who are exposed to increased industry specific risks.

He regularly advises on the intersection between business and emerging technologies. Arun advises both, international and domestic clients, on technology-related transactional and advisory matters across sectors ranging from banking, insurance, healthcare, internet and telecommunications to media and broadcasting. He regularly advices on large scale acquisitions of, or investments into, technology and data centric entities. Some of his key transactions in this regard include Equinix Acquisition of GPX’s data center business in India, IronMountain’s strategic investment into Web Werks India Private Limited and Adani’s strategic relationship with Google.

His transactional work involves enabling complex technology procurement and outsourcing contracts, and software development and licensing arrangements. Recent key transactions have involved assisting Equinix Inc., Adaniconnex Private Limited, Tata Digital Limited, Hinduja Global Solutions Limited, Sequoia Capital, Warburg Pincus, SBI General Insurance and several large banks and financial services institutions and private equity investors in India with key technology transactions.

Arun writes, speaks, comments and consults extensively with industry associations, embassies, self-regulatory organizations and think tanks, including FICCI, CII, ASSOCHAM on the emerging Indian legal regime surrounding data protection. He has been conducting training for his clients, basis the recently released drafts of the Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022.

• Blackstone on their acquisition of a majority stake in R-Systems International, a global technology and analytics company, for a total consideration of USD 359 Million.
• Hinduja Global Solutions on their sale of healthcare services business to Baring Private Equity Asia for total transaction consideration of USD 1.2 Billion.
• Viacom Limited on the strategic partnership with Bodhi Tree (promoted by James Murdoch and Uday Shankar) where Bodhi Tree led a fund-raising round of USD 1.78 Billion.
• Google LLC in relation to the 100% acquisition of Provino Technologies Inc (Provino U.S), a company engaged in the business of developing interconnect platforms for SoCs, and the purchase of a direct 10% stake in Provino U.S.’ subsidiary in India, Provino Technologies Private Limited.
• Amazon on a range of strategic initiatives, acquisitions including into the Good Glamm Group, Purpule Technologies, Smallcase and Cashify. Continue to advise Amazon on investments and data privacy advice on specific products.
• Meta Inc., on data privacy aspects of their operations and platform related compliance obligations.
• Alphabet Inc., on regulatory considerations for several product and services offered in India and data privacy related advise on strategic partnerships in India.
• Krafton Inc., on its strategic investments into Nodwin Gaming, Pratilipi, Kuku FM and Nautilus Gaming.
• Dream11 on their strategic investment in Rario, a Web3.0 based NFT trading platform.
• Credavenue Private Limited on its acquisition of Spocto Solutions Private Limited and Blue Vine Technologies Limited (Corpository), which are online platforms that provide AI based information analysis solutions to businesses.
• Vitol Asia Pte. Ltd. on their strategic investment in SUN Mobility Pte. Ltd., which operates in the renewable energy space and provides services across the electric vehicle operation infrastructure
• Equinix Asia Pacific Pte Limited on their acquisition of GPX Inc’s data center business in India and entry strategy into India.
• World’s largest private equity fund on establishing a data center platform in India.
• Truecaller on a range of data privacy and technology related initiatives in India.
• Adani Group in relation to their investment in the data center business, and formation of a joint venture with ECX Inc for development of data centers in India.
• Advising a large listed healthcare service provider on strategic collaboration with a large US listed technology company for development of smart healthcare centric solutions.
• Advised Iron Mountain Inc., on a strategic joint venture with Web Werks India Private Limited a large Indian data center operator.
• Advised Reliance Corporate IT Park Limited (“Jio”) in relation to their strategic business relationship with Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited wherein Microsoft Corporation would deploy its Azure framework at Jio Datacenters and MS India would run and operate such data centers. This was one-of-a-kind strategic collaboration between MS and Jio.

• Ranked ‘Band 3’ at Chambers and Partners, 2023
• Ranked ‘Leading Lawyer’ at Legal Era Leading Lawyers Rankings, 2022
• Recognised as ‘Data Privacy and Protection Lawyer of the Year’ at ALB India Law Awards, 2022
• ‘India’s Top TMT Lawyer’ by Asian Legal Business, 2022
• ‘Band 4 Lawyer’, Chambers Asia-Pacific Guide Ranking, 2022
• ‘Recommended Partner’, Legal 500 Asia Pacific Rankings, 2022
• ‘Top Individual Lawyers‘(over 10 years’ experience) at Forbes PowerList, 2021
• Super 50 TMT Lawyers, Asian Legal Business, 2021
• ‘Notable Practitioner’ IFLR 1000, 2022-2019
• ‘Up and Coming’, Chambers and Partners 2020
• ‘Notable Practitioner’ for FinTech, Chambers and Partners, 2019

• Bar Council of Karnataka