India Business Law Journal – July/August 2008

Rising to the challenge

Have India’s law firms kept pace with their corporate peers? Are they equipping themselves to serve the changing needs of clients in a sophisticated, globalized economy?

In this issue’s Intelligence report, we revisit the state of play among India’s leading law firms. Our coverage also includes an extensive legal directory, containing information on many of the country’s top firms.

Gearing up – in terms of staff, technological wherewithal and ambition – is a common refrain. India’s lawyers are focused on not falling behind the country’s vibrant and truly modern corporate vanguard. Excellence is increasingly the only benchmark that matters to clients.

Our update highlights progressive efforts by leading practices to shed the “top-heavy, bottom-heavy” family-dominated model of yesteryear. Alongside technological retooling, middle managers are the crucial component. Snapping up returning overseas-qualified lawyers and the brightest graduates is near the top of the priority list.

And how to keep them? Fear that the best practitioners will be poached if foreign law firms are permitted to enter India has long been a core principle espoused by local lawyers opposing the admission of overseas lawyers.

This issue’s Vantage point contributor, chairman of Baker & McKenzie Asia Pacific, David Jacobs, is in a better position than many to add his distinguished voice to the vital debate on the entry of international law firms into India (Breaking down walls).

He argues that foreign law firms will develop, not devour, local talent, promising all lawyers an equal footing.

In the meantime, there is no shortage of landmark cross-border transactions for Indian and international lawyers to be cutting their teeth on. The legal legwork behind the latest “India globalizing” headline – Daiichi’s acquisition of Ranbaxy – is examined in detail in this issue of India Business Law Journal (Prescription for success?).

Our coverage reveals how the Japanese conglomerate believes India’s leading pharma business can fill crucial gaps in its global footprint. The deal is complex in structure, timing and much more – and has a long way yet to run. Securing approval from regulators on several continents has barely begun.

Staying in the realm of pharmaceuticals, an in-depth interview with Yusuf Hamied, chairman of generic drugs giant Cipla, sheds much light on India’s intellectual property regime and the impact of the 2005 Patent Act (India’s Robin Hood?).

In a wide-ranging discussion, Hamied shares his views on the obstacles holding back scientific research in India and the inconsistencies and loopholes in patent law worldwide. Hamied also fires a warning shot across the government’s bow, fearing for the survival of local corporates in the wake of the Ranbaxy takeover.

The government’s and regulators’ role in building and maintaining a business-friendly legal environment is an area where less progress is evident than in the private sector. The potentially pernicious effects of retroactive legislation are featured in a sophisticated analysis by Sanjeev Kapoor of Khaitan & Co (Rewriting legal history). He presents and dissects the divergent views on this controversial, and increasingly common, parliamentary practice.

Meanwhile, our News coverage of the tax treatment of Vodafone’s acquisition of Hutchison Essar, a matter now before Bombay High Court, cannot help but bring the point home.

For information on other court cases, be sure to read our Court judgments column on page 14. This new monthly section will keep you updated on the most significant commercial law decisions reached by India’s courts.

Troubling as the rewriting of legal history may be, it pales into relative insignificance beside the baleful legacy of the corruption so often encountered in India’s legal establishment.

Our Cover story considers how Indian jurisprudence is poisoned by this cancer (Stopping the rot). It airs the opinions, experiences and prescriptions of private practitioners and in-house counsel, and reveals less a tawdry tale of notes stashed in brown paper envelopes than of abuse of the common law heritage on which India so prides itself.

Some judges exploit the inviolability of their judicial posts as a cloak to evade accountability. Probe too deeply and don’t be surprised if an order for contempt of court is soon heading your way.

And some lawyers distort the principles of due process and the right to appeal to bury cases in paperwork for decades in return for “a consideration”. All too often, such rotten apples on both sides of the Bench are complicit in their malfeasance.

Corruption is not a problem confined to India, nor to the legal sector. And the reality is far from the crisis of corruption so prevalent in many parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Nevertheless, for the sake of India’s economic and social development and the integrity of its legal infrastructure, it must rise to the challenge of confronting this scourge.