Chief Guest of the event, Former Justice, Supreme Court of India, Mr. Krishna Murari, encourages different stakeholders to come together for a healthy and focussed discussion on this important subject.

 13th October, 2024, New Delhi: There was a packed house at the 7th Annual Meet & International Summit hosted by the Alliance for Corporate Counsel and Company Secretaries (ACoS) at Hotel Eros, New Delhi. The theme of the Summit was Globalisation of Legal Services and over 140 distinguished legal professionals came together for knowledge exchange and deliberation on diverse subjects.

During the opening address, Mr. Parvesh Kheterpal, Founder, ACoS and General Counsel, AMPYR Energy, shared that the first meeting organised by ACoS was a humble gathering of 8-10 like-minded people. He said, “It’s heartening to see our community grow from strength to strength every year as this collective vision and constant support is what makes ACoS special. In today’s age, in-house counsels play an integral role in navigating risks and market complexities to give commercially viable solutions to the business. Every day they interpret the law and design and implement strategy which requires great legal expertise and commercial awareness. Therefore, General Counsels should also be recognised as an ‘Advocate’.”

In the Inaugural Address, the Chief Guest of the evening, Mr. Krishna Murari, Former Justice, Supreme Court of India said, “In the olden days the torch of justice was borne by practising lawyers and judges only, but General Counsels too now share this responsibility. When the Advocates Act was incorporated, the role of the General Counsel was not really carved out. The reality is that today they play multiple roles in the organisations they work with – risk managers, legal strategists, business enablers, compliance experts and even board members. How then is a GC any less of a practising lawyer than his counterpart across the table?”

Other legal luminaries who were invited as Special Guests were Mr. Manoj Singh,

S&A Law Offices and Mr. Talwant Singh, Former Justice, Delhi High Court.

During the day there were deliberations on different subjects including Making Bharat a Hub for International Arbitration-Dream to Reality; Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 – Implications & Impact; Cross-Border M&A; and The ChatGPT Lawyer – Opportunities and Risks of Generative AI for the Legal Profession. International speakers from Dubai and Singapore were also part of the panel discussion.

The last session was a Roundtable on ‘New Age General Counsel and its Recognition as an Advocate’.

Members of the newly announced ACoS Governing Council were also felicitated on stage. These included Mr. Sameet Gambhir, VP (Corp Law) and CS, DCM Shriram,

Ms. Lakshika Joshi, Global Legal Lead SFS & IP Officer – Capgemini Engineering, Mr. Pathik Arora, General Counsel, Senvion India, Ms. Sampadaa Narang, Experienced General Counsel, Mr. Govind Vijay, VP Legal – HT Media, Ms. Ranju Goyal, General Counsel - Stanza Living, Mr. Sachin Kalra, VP Legal – HT Media and Mr. Deepak Sharma, General Counsel, G4S.

ACoS is committed to all in-house counsels for exchanging views, sharing knowledge and helping young lawyers who are new in the profession. It always endeavours to discuss important developments in the field of law, legislations, regulations and judicial pronouncements, Kheterpal added in his inaugural remarks.

About Alliance for Corporate Counsel and Company Secretaries (ACoS): Alliance for Corporate Counsel and Company Secretaries (ACoS) is an association of Corporate Counsels & Company Secretaries which promotes the common professional and business interests of In-house legal professionals through information, education, networking opportunities and other initiatives.

For over a decade ACoS has been bringing together the In-house community for peer-to-peer learning, networking, in-depth analysis of key policy and regulatory developments and advocacy-based representations to the Government on various changes in statutes. ACoS serves as a platform which General Counsels and Company Secretaries can look to for their knowledge optimisation, recognition, interaction with industry experts and for making their voices heard as drivers of legal and regulatory strategy and implementation in their organisations.

ACoS regularly organises sessions on diverse and important topics in law and policy for its members and patrons. These are in the form of roundtable discussions, knowledge workshops, full-day annual events, informal get togethers, retreats etc.