India is all set to allow foreign law firms to set up offices in the country in order to offer corporate law and merger and acquisition services to clients.
This will be a major move which will see the reshaping of the landscape of a sector which has for a long time been dominated by local law firms.
In new set of rules issued on Wednesday, the Bar Council of India said that foreign lawyers and law firms can also advise on international arbitration cases on a reciprocal basis. This will mean that lawyers from only those countries which allow similar opportunities to Indian lawyers, will be able to practice in the country.
However, foreign lawyers will only be allowed to advise on foreign or international laws and will not be permitted to appear before any Indian courts, tribunals or regulatory authorities, according to the new rules.
The rules stated, “They shall be allowed to practice on transactional work/corporate work such as joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions, intellectual property matters ... on (a) reciprocal basis.”
It is now expected that in light of the new rules, global law firms such as Latham & Watkins, DLA Piper, Baker McKenzie and the likes can set up their offices in India.
This will bring a major change in the existing scenario where for years the Indian legal system only allowed foreign lawyers to operate on a fly-in and fly-out basis for advising clients.
The founder of Indian law firm Saraf and Partners, Mohit Saraf termed the new rules to be a “game changer”. He said that it will surely increase competition in the market.
Saraf said, “It will enable us to move up the value chain by collaborating with foreign lawyers, foreign law firms.”
