Tiruchelvam Associates

PROFILES

 Partners:

Sithie Tiruchelvam

LL.B(Ceylon); Attorney at Law (1968)

Founding Partner

E-Mail: stiruchelvam@tiruchelvam.com

Sithie Tiruchelvam is a founding partner of the firm, and has over 40 years of experience representing foreign and domestic companies in corporate and commercial matters. She specializes in Corporate and Commercial Law, Consumer Law, Employment and Labor Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Trusts and Non-Profit Law, Immigration and Tax Law. She is also an active campaigner on human rights issues.

She regularly represents a variety of multi-national companies, financial institutions and not-for-profit institutions in commercial legal matters, including recently:

• a leading investment bank in its secured loan of US$200 million to a regional conglomerate in the palm-oil business
• regulatory and transactional advice to a international telecommunications company in its acquisition bid for a local cellular service provider
  
• structuring of an employee stock option plan, analysis of local legislation and providing tax advice for one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies
• restructuring of the financial and corporate governance affairs of a regional non-government academic institution
  

She currently serves as an independent director on the board of a leading public listed company (John Keels Holdings) and several non-profit institutions (including, Nadesan Centre for Human Rights and South Asians for Human Rights).

She is also the chairperson of the Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust and the Foundations for Peace Network, a worldwide network of community foundations working on issues of peace and reconciliation in conflict affected societies.

Asanka Abeysekera

Attorney at Law (1977); Notary Public;

Partner / Company Secretary

E-mail: aabeysekera@tiruchelvam.com

Asanka Abeysekera has over 31 years of experience in the legal profession, including corporate counsel experience as Vice President (Legal) in Vanik Incorporation Ltd, Assistant Manager (Legal) in the Greater Colombo Economic Commission (presently known as the Board of Investment) and as Legal Manager at Finco Limited.

She joined the firm in 1990 as an Associate and left it to join Vanik Incorporation Ltd in 1999, a domestic investment bank. She re-joined the firm in 2003 as a Partner and is in charge of the Company Secretarial Division of the firm.

Her recent experience includes

• Directing, supervising and advising a large merchant banking group on all its legal issues.
  
• Providing expert advice to banks on secured transactions and representing the borrower when a Sri Lankan based hotelier entered into loan agreements with a banking consortium. 

Ramani Muttettuwegama

LL.B (London); LL.M (Columbia); Attorney at Law (1993, Sri Lanka); Barrister at Law (Lincoln’s Inn)

Partner

Ramani Muttettuwegama joined the firm in 1993 and was made Partner in 1999. Her areas of expertise include: Litigation, Company and Corporate Law, Mergers and Acquisitions, Project Finance, E-commerce, Human Rights, and Environmental law. She is presently on a leave of absence in Europe.

Senior Associates:

Sharmela de Silva

LL.B(Middlesex); LL.M(London); Solicitor(U.K.)

Senior Associate

E-mail: sdesilva@tiruchelvam.com

Sharmela de Silva received her legal education and training as a solicitor in the U.K. She has several years of experience working in commercial law firms in Sri Lanka (Julius & Creasy) and London (Scott Marks & Company). Her main areas of practice are Corporate and Commercial law, Telecommunications, Commercial Leasing, Banking and Securitization.

 
Mithran Tiruchelvam

BA (Reed College); BA (Cantab); LL.M (University of Pennsylvania); Attorney at Law (2004, New York)

Senior Associate

E-mail: mtiruchelvam@tiruchelvam.com

Mithran Tiruchelvam is a U.S. qualified and trained attorney and has practiced as a corporate lawyer in the New York offices of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.  He has also served as in-house counsel for a technology outsourcing company in New York. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, technology and other corporate transactions. He is a member of the New York State Bar. He is currently based in New Delhi where he has been an adjunct lecturer in media and communications law.

Sean N. Henricus

MA (Cantab); PG Cert Law (University of Auckland)

Senior Associate

E-mail: shenricus@tiruchelvam.com

Sean Henricus completed his primary legal education at the University of Cambridge and initially served as the in-house legal officer for SriLankan Airlines. He subsequently spent two years working for a law firm based in New Zealand specialising in telecommunications, technology and regulatory law across the Asia-Pacific region. He recently joined the firm having moved back to Sri Lanka in 2009. His primary areas of practice are aviation law and airline liability, the regulation of telecommunications and competition law, primarily in fields of technology and new media law.

Consultants:

C.P.E. Gunasingam

BS.E (Madras); LL.B (Colombo); Attorney at Law (1972)

Mr. Gunasingam is a Fellow Member of the Sri Lanka Institute of Taxation and has served as its President for four years. He has served as a Visiting Lecturer in Taxation at the Sri Lanka Institute of Taxation and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka. He has also served as an Assessor of Inland Revenue from 1962 to 1973 and counts 34 years of service as a Tax Practitioner. He has addressed seminars and contributed articles to newspapers and journals on tax related subjects.

Mr. Gunasingam served as a Board Member of Peoples Bank. Presently he serves as a Board Member of the Insurance Board of Sri Lanka, Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka and the National Council for Economic Development.

Dr. A. Rohan Perera, P.C.

LL.B (Ceylon); Diploma in International Law and Development (ISS); Ph.D (Colombo); Attorney at Law (1973)

Dr. Rohan Perera, an expert in the field of public international law, is our external consultant in this area of the law. Having joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an Assistant Legal Advisor in 1976, he was appointed an Additional Legal Advisor and finally Legal Advisor, and has recently, upon reaching the age of retirement prescribed for public officials, relinquished his post at the Ministry.

During a career spanning a period of over thirty-two (32) years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has been directly involved in the negotiation of State-to-State agreements such as the Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (concluded by Sri Lanka) as well as Free Trade Agreements between Sri Lanka and India and Pakistan. He has also represented the Government of Sri Lanka in international arbitrations on investment disputes before the Arbitral Tribunal of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). He has been involved in the negotiations of bi-lateral Air Services Agreements and bi-lateral treaties on Extradition, Mutual Legal Assistance and Maritime Boundary Regimes, for and on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka.

He is the Chairman of the United Nations Ad-hoc Committee on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism and is currently serving as a member of the UN International Law Commission (ILC). He has been mandated by the ILC to co-author a discussion paper on the ‘MFN Clause’ in the context of recent bi-lateral investment and economic integration agreements.

Instructing Attorney:

K. M. Sujatha Kumari Kulatunga

Attorney at Law (1977); Notary Public; Company Secretary; Commissioner of Oaths

Sujatha Kulatuga joined the firm in 1995 as the firm’s Instructing Attorney. She has 28 years of litigation experience. She has also been a Human Resources Manager and a Legal Officer with various companies, government corporations and private companies. She is an affiliate member of the Institute of Personal Management and is a Consultant in Human Resources Management. Her areas of specialization include: Labor Tribunal trials, matrimonial cases and all other civil matters up to the Appellate Courts. She also acts as a Disciplinary Inquiry Officer for commercial and government institutions.

Legal Officers:

Diani Nanayakkara

LL.B (Colombo); Attorney at Law (2007); Commissioner for Oaths; Company Secretary

E-mail: dnanayakkara@tiruchelvam.com

Nadia Ishaq

LL.B (London); LL.M (Columbia)

E-mail: nishaq@tiruchelvam.com