John Chrisman heads our Sydney office and leads our Australia and India practices. John has over 20 years’ experience as an US securities and M&A lawyer, and he has worked on transactions in more than 30 countries across six continents. John advises companies, financial institutions and investment banks on international capital markets deals and cross-border M&A transactions. Recently, John was named by Australasian Legal Business. as one of the Hot 40 lawyers of 2009 in the region. John is one of the leading international legal counsel (ILC) on capital markets transactions in India.
John has worked on over 150 capital markets transactions in India since 1990. John and the Dorsey India team have been awarded deal of the year by India Legal Business in 2009 for NHPC and 2007 for Power Grid Corporation of India.
Examples of Indian offerings on which John has worked, include Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Bharti Televentures, Power Finance Corporation, Patni Computer Systems, Sobha Developers, Mahindra Gesco, Motilal Oswal, Marico, Jyothy Laboratories, Advanta India, Apollo Tyres, Air Deccan, IDFC, Patel Engineering, Bank of Baroda, Jagran Prakashan (Danik Jagran), HT Media (Hindustan Times), Central Bank of India, and Yes Bank.
John has also worked on a number of high profile transactions in Europe and Australia. He has worked on large privatisations like ENI in Italy and BT in the UK and important securities offerings for Alstom (France), Banco di Roma (Italy), BHP Billiton (Australia), British Airways, British Petroleum, CRH (Ireland), Erste Bank (Austria), Fortis (the Netherlands), Fortum (Finland), Foster’s (Australia), Gazprom (Russia), Norskhydro (Norway), PCCW (Hong Kong), P&O Princess Cruises, Statoil, Tenaga Nasional (Malaysia) and Woodside Petroleum (Australia).
John has represented numerous investment banks around the world including, for example, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Merrill Lynch, Macquarie Bank, ABN Amro, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, UBS, CLSA, Kotak Mahindra, Enam Securities, JM Financial and ICICI.
John joined Dorsey in September 2005. John has been a partner at other major international law firms in London, Hong Kong and Singapore.