Khaitan & Co is the latest firm in Delhi to start a competition law practice with the hire of J Sagar Associates (JSA) competition law and policy head Manas Chaudhuri as a partner, who was previously also additional registrar of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
Chaudhuri said: “Any law firm that has a national practice will have to have a competition practice in place. Without that a foreign client will not be interested in investing because they are aware of this law.”
Chaudhuri worked with JSA from October 2006 and joined Khaitan & Co on 1 December.
“I need to understand the business model of this law firm first and I have been here for only a few hours,” he told Legally India when asked about his plans at Khaitan & Co.
“The basics are that you have to have coordination between different departments and partners because competition law covers the entire gamut of industry and is not a sector specific law.”
Prior to joining JSA Chaudhuri was an additional registrar of the CCI for three years, before which he was a joint director legal in the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) commission.
Chaudhuri started his legal career with West Bengal state judicial service as a civil judge in 1986 and worked as a legal advisor to the Tea Board of India for 10 years.
He said that competition law would be a vital area of law in India’s future.
“The time is ripe for proper implementation and it is for the enforcement officials to decide the future course of development of the law,” he said but added: “It is a process which we all need to understand and we can’t be oblivious of the fact that this law is now the law of the land.”
Chaudhuri noted that to understand competition law it was important to understand both microeconomics and law at the same time. Industry knowledge was therefore vital for the CCI, which had engaged top institutes in India to create market studies and in that we were funded by the world bank.
JSA was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.
Legally India had earlier reported the hire of former CCI registrar M M Sharma by Vaish Associates in August and Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi hiring non-Indian qualified competition law expert Paku Khan in November.
Photo by Mike Fleming
Comments
thats surely a leap of faith.. not knowing the business model of a firm before joiing it.. wonder thats why he quit JSA so early..
[Thanks for pointing out, we have now changed this. We regret any confusion that may have been caused. -Ed]
Digressing from the topic, I was dejected (for various reasons) when I thought all the best international law firms (thought that the 'magic circle' was magic) had been lapped up by a few Indian firms as 'best friends'. I was pleasantly surprised when my search on wikipedia made me realize that US law firms are much bigger in terms of revenue (they made more money in 2008 than the 'magic circle firms' and also as US was the worst hit in 2008 that is something special if not magical) and attorney size as compared to the 'magic circle' and most of them haven't tied up with Indian firms. The next wave maybe 'best friends' with US law firms.
It is not that they dont like Indian firms but more simply their eat what you kill model makes it very difficulty for them to do any JV merger with any other firm with lower PEP. US firms are happy to refer work to Indian firms and sometimes closely supervise them if their client requires so. Occassionally they will have one or two Indian origin lawyers or lawyers who have studied law in India to let theri clients know that they have someone familiar with that part of the world...
Reviewing agreements such as exclusivity agreements, procurement agreements, franchise agreements to ensure they are compliant.
Structuring transactions to ensure that when and if the merger control provisions are notified the transactions would be compliant as it can take some time for the transaction documents to be executed/board resolutions to be passed which would result in the merger filing requirement and it is unclear when the merger control provisions will be notified ....
Conducting compliance programs and preparing dawn raid manuals etc for clients
Defensive work - dismantling existing cartels/advising clients on how to wash their hands
Preparing filings for clients who are scared their cartel may be blown and they would like to seek leniency (amnesty program)
Only a few firms can handle it, the rest are scraping their way through it...
Word on the street is that Farhad Sohrabjee from the Mumbai office heads the 'competition practice' of JSA, so although Manas leaving is a loss to the firm, its not curtains yet!
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Safe to assume Delhi firms since CCI is in Delhi? Read on this website recently that Amarchand is building up competition practice. Luthra's also building up.