
Viren Raja
Biography
Viren Raja is a director designate in Baker McKenzie's Dispute Resolution Practice Group in Johannesburg. Viren also spent a year working in the Sydney office in Australia.
Practice Focus
Viren mainly assists in general commercial-related disputes as well as matters relating to insolvency and business rescue. He has worked on various mediation and arbitration proceedings as well as high court litigation in various commercial sectors. Viren has also been involved in compliance and investigations and white-collar crime matters. He has represented national and multinational clients in the financial, technology, energy, construction, mining, security, risk management and logistics sectors.
Representative Legal Matters
Australia
- Assisted in advising a group of overseas-based lenders regarding various facility agreements in relation to a greenhouse project and resultant insolvency proceedings and litigation including a class action in relation thereto.
- Assisted in advising creditors in relation to the Virgin Australia Administration.
- Advised an ASX-listed distribution and marketing company in relation to insolvency proceedings and ongoing litigation in relation to one of its subsidiaries in South Africa.
- Assisting in advising trustees in relation to various litigious matters in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia.
- Successfully appeared in the Federal Court of Australia, New South Wales Division to move a reinstatement application.
South Africa
- Advising a large multinational mining and metals company listed on the ASX, JSE and the LSE with a dispute in relation to its plants and energy supply.
- Advising a technology company with an intellectual property dispute in relation to its various applications.
- Assisted in advising leading financial houses in South Africa in relation to a complex shareholders dispute involving the Steinhoff collapse.
- Conducts investigations, and advises and assists local and multinational clients relating to breaches of anti-bribery, corruption, fraud, and money laundering laws and regulations, including in respect of reporting obligations, interactions with authorities, remedial measures and resulting criminal and civil proceedings.
- Represented and advised various mining and commercial companies in relation to their claims and rights in the business rescues of their respective debtors.
Professional Associations and Memberships
- Law Society of Northern Provinces - Member
- South Africa Restructuring and Insolvency Practitioners Association - Member
- INSOL International - Member
Admissions
- High Court of South Africa (2015)
Education
- University of Johannesburg (Short Learning Programme in Business Rescue) (2016)
- Rhodes University (LL.B.) (2012)
- Rhodes University (B.A. Law and Organisational Psychology) (2010)
Languages
- English
Previous Offices
- Sydney