What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?

The pace of regulatory change remains vigorous across the banking, capital markets, and financial services sectors. Ensuring that one remains abreast of these changes, what they entail for the entities, and what they require from a policy and implementation perspective is an extremely important aspect that has consumed significant bandwidth. Assisting with transactions that help clients achieve not only their funding or hedging needs but also provide trade finance and cash management services, as well as mergers and acquisitions-related advice, assessing the applicability of relevant laws and regulations to transaction structures, advising on organic and inorganic strategies for the entities, overseeing governance, and working with the businesses on external stakeholder engagement, all while considering the scope and parameters of the new Digital Personal Data Protection law in India and the rollout of various laws in the MENA region, has been the basis for a very busy year.

Based on your experience, what is the key to collaborating successfully with business partners? 

An open mind, a consultative approach, asking the right questions, and offering guidance in the correct direction allow for a prudent and compliant outcome. Risk is inherent to business and must be always managed prudently. The key is dialogue, partnering, and clearly articulating and explaining the red lines so that they are well understood.

India is an economy that is rapidly growing and expected to be one of the economic powerhouses of the 21st Century. How do you see the role of GCs there changing in this environment? 

The mode that proceeds on the basis of offering only legal advice—and that too only when asked—will need recalibration. The world is at the same time becoming even more complex in terms of both domestic and foreign cross-border law and regulation, and it is far more uncertain and subject to interpretation. The need to step out and proactively engage with internal and external stakeholders will not only inform the lawyer better but will also be necessary, as early involvement, active dialogue, and intervention will be factors that help the GC find a meaningful seat at the table. The Legal function will find that it flourishes and succeeds best if it is at the forefront of strategising and bringing the benefit of legal assessment to those discussions while also understanding the commercial and business underpinnings well.

Are the effects of AI on the legal world overplayed, or underplayed? 

The jury is still not in – it will certainly help, but I do not think anything replaces a thoughtful, passionate, committed, and thinking human being, which is how AI is most thought about by those who don’t know it and fear it. Yes, it will help with speed to conclusion, harness and channel data, even draft, summarise, and much more, all being tools that will assist and hopefully not replace or substitute for everything. As human beings, we too will have to evolve to contribute at strategic and more complex levels.