Sharmilla Bhima is a senior associate and a member of the Corporate & Commercial department and the Corporate Finance team at Appleby.
Prior to joining the firm in August 2007, Sharmilla was a practising barrister in general private practice covering all areas of law. From September 1999 to June 2001, she was a member of the Chambers of Clarel Benoit, Mauritius, undertaking predominantly offshore and commercial matters with a fair amount of taxation laws. She has carried out legal due diligence abroad for foreign clients and has conducted training courses for the local police on intellectual property law.
From July 2001 until July 2007, Sharmilla was in private practice, undertaking both criminal and civil litigation including employment law and matrimonial matters before the Supreme Court. In 2005, she appeared as junior counsel in a major money-laundering trial before the Intermediate Court (Police v Noel & Anor). She also undertook advisory work advising on civil, commercial, corporate and employment matters and appeared before disciplinary committees. Advice on commercial work has comprised drafting and advising on MOUs. She gained extensive experience with road-accident matters as a Vice-Chairman of the Motor Vehicle Insurance Arbitration Committee.
She has acquired expertise on intellectual property law through her Chairmanship of the Industrial Property Tribunal and works closely with the Cayman Islands Office on IP matters concerning registration of industrial property rights in Mauritius.
Sharmilla has worked on a number of transactions for financial institutions, private equity and hedge fund clients, including Bank of America, BMCE Bank International Citigroup, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft, Coutts & Co., Credit Suisse AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Electro Banque, Goldman Sachs, ICICI, JP Morgan, Lloyds TSB Bank, Macquarie Bank Ltd, Morgan Stanley, National Australia Bank Limited, Royal Bank of Scotland, Société Générale, Standard Chartered Bank, UBS AG, Alcatel-Lucent, The Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company, DAMAC Holdings Co, LLC, Dallah Albaraka (Ireland) Ltd, Gateway Telecommunications, Kerzner International Group and Lehman Brothers Group.
Sharmilla has retained some practice before the Supreme Court and appeared for a leading Australian bank in proceedings before the Supreme Court and is presently involved before the Supreme Court of Mauritius for the enforcement of a foreign judgment.
Sharmilla has helped with the preparation of a chapter on the protection of intellectual property law in two books that were authored by a senior member of the Mauritian Bar, Mrs. M-L Lam Hung, Bar-at-Law, namely Investing in Mauritius - Ocean of Opportunities and Doing Business in Mauritius - A Practical Guide.
The International Law Office published her article on employment law ‘The Dawning of a New Era in Employment Law’ that she contributed for the Appleby Quarterly Review in 2010.
Sharmilla is a member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and of the Mauritius Bar Association. She was a member of the Mauritius Bar Council (co-opted member) in 2007-2008. She has been actively involved in community service and has served as the President of The English-Speaking Union for the past two years. She was one of the Vice-Presidents of the Women's Foundation for World Peace (an NGO) and speaks English and French.