Lex Witness – India’s 1st Magazine on Legal & Corporate Affairs in association with King Stubb & Kasiva, Advocates & Attorneys and Eversheds Sutherland presented “Legal TownHall – A Global Dialogue on Covid-19” on June 19th, 2020. This was the 3rd webinar of the series presented by a forum called Legal TownHall.
The webinar was commenced by thanking the frontline COVID-19 warriors The webinar session was:
IN HOUSE COUNSELS ON BOARD
Mr Deepak Chauhan
(Director and Head Legal, Welspun Group),
Mr Chaitanya Ramachandran
(Senior Legal Counsel, APAC, Twitter),
Mr Abhijit Mukhopadhyay
(President Legal and General Counsel, Hinduja Group)
Mr Nilanjan Sinha
(Head Legal, India and South East Asia ICICI Bank)
Mr Vinodh Kumar
(Group General Counsel & Company Secretary Export Trading Group {ETG}.
The webinar was focused on key focused issues pertaining to the planning of re-entry into Brave New World (Labour and Employees), the Business challenges including the re-negotiating of contracts and transactions, the multifarious options in Dispute Resolution and change in tactics and techniques bought by COVID-19 and lastly how to manage the local and global crisis.
Attributes an Effective General Counsel Needs to Possess During Such a Crisis.
The first question was put forth by Mr Jidesh to Mr Vinod whereby he was asked to comment on the attributes an effective general counsel needs to possess during such a crisis. Mr. Vinod’s reasoning on the question at hand was threefold in nature. According to him the attributes of an effective General Counsel shall always remain the same, irrespective if they are being assessed during normal times or during a crisis. For him, an effective General Council acquires and imbibes critical thinking set and crisis management deep in the genes. According to him a good crisis manager firstly needs to maintain a calm demeanour. He explained this concept by taking an example of a duck who appears calm on the surface but is paddling furiously underwater. Therefore when a senior management board relies on GC in times of crisis, they would not favour someone who himself is in a panic hysteria. Secondly, an alert GC needs to keep his eye and ears open for any kind of disruption in his sector or industry because it could either be a threat or it could be an opportunity. He needs to stay ahead of the curve in order to stay ahead in the game because this enables him to be prepared and manage the crisis in a more appropriate manner. Last but not the least, a successful GC should also be a good commercial lawyer as the crisis presents itself with a silver lining of numerous opportunities and one can perform his role as a commercial lawyer in a better-suited manner.
When Mr Nilanjan was asked the same question, he provided the audience with an in-depth analysis of the question. For him, the answer of the question was divided into six parts. He explained that firstly when dealing with a crisis situation at hand, one should think of himself as a wartime leader he has to act upon and lead like a military general at wartime does. Therefore in times of crisis one has to lead from the frontline a wartime leader. But at the same time, the leader should also empower its own people to take well informed and honest decisions. Secondly, the general council also take care of the fact that no one takes advantage of this crisis situation as usually, this is the time when people take an easy way out and cut corners, which is exactly what shouldn’t be done. Thirdly, one should never make excuses for his lack of integrity adherence because making quick earnings and short-term gains should not be the long term goal of any General Council and his team. Fourthly one leader should also show empathy and sensitivity towards the issue because at the end of the day, we all are humans with emotions. Fifthly, a leader should uphold his communication skills but at the same time should refrain from over-communicating. Last but not the least, the general counsel should understand the scarcity of resources and needs to have a laser focus on the plan of expenditure. One needs to think 20 times before taking any step and should value its cost-analysis.
General Counsel in the Dual Role of Conscious Leader and of a Business Enabler
Mr. Paramjit afterwards questioned Mr Abhijit that sometimes General Counsel undertakes the dual role of conscious leader and also a business enabler in the company and how would he successfully collaborate with the CEO or the board or other members at a public company. Mr Abhijit responded that the role of GC as a business enabler and as a conscious leader remains the same even if there is such a Pandemic or not. According to him the in-house Council faces a very glassy dilemma i.e. should they remain as strict legal persons or should they become flexible to try and help the outcome of the business. For him the underlying structure of GC exists till date is because of the existence of the businesses and if there were no business or promoter or shareholder, then they will become unemployed. So, therefore, it is the duty of the GC that business should not only survive but also progress but this does not mean that the GC should be allowed to do all the unethical task. Having a huge company with more than 65,000 people employees and more than 500 trillion turnovers, people come to a GC with problems but they do not go back with problems. they go back with solutions because this is what is a GC job is and therefore in order to be an effective GC one always possess a plethora of business knowledge. Such business knowledge would include the basics of business, the difficulties faced by them and the possible solutions which would enable them to grow. Hence there is a need to make the business leaders as your colleagues and friends so that even if they have no problem they can come and talk to you as a friend. It is only a general council which can become a problem solver and also maintain a balance between the two the role of a conscious leader and business enabler. According to sir, he calls himself an effective council on the basis of the number of calls he gets in a day by the people who want help from him to solve a problem and not the other way round.
When Mr Deepak was asked the same question he begun by acknowledging his full agreement with the viewpoint of Mr Abhijit. For him, the path chosen by the problem solver should be extremely precise and not something which is too complex for his seekers to understand. The need for a problem solver arises because they balance between the approaches they have to undertake and the needs and requirements of his solution seekers. As a general counsel, people expect him to be very precise in what he explains and transparency is the key to all the answers as they abhor sugar-coated lies and fallacies.
Mr Chaitanya was thereafter asked a question by Mr Jitesh Kumar about the five biggest challenges he as a GC has faced in this COVID 19 pandemic. Mr Chaitanya with an ever-smiling face answered very wittily that the first problem was the pandemic itself because sitting inside has made us lose the realm of the outside world. While sitting inside our four-walled room we cannot comment on the outside reality but it can be said that there is a lot of suffering about which we are unaware. Secondly, the general level of uncertainty which is surrounding everyone around about the need to retain normalcy in the business sector possesses a lot of emotional and mental trauma. The third challenge according to him was the rupture business cycle and its effect on the economic sector. Fourthly the abnormal rhythm of work-life and inability to maintain a balance between the external and internal stakeholders and company members is another task at hand. Lastly, the challenge of low-performance rate and inability to exhibit their skills because of the scarce resources also has an effect on the performance of a GC or in-house lawyer. The pending litigation and restriction on social contact and interaction serve as a major challenge as well.
When Mr Abhijit was asked to comment on the top 5 challenges he has been facing a GC for a global conglomerate. For him, his first personal challenge was to keep himself fit- both physically and mentally. The second challenge was not only to keep his own moral high but you also to motivate everyone around him to work in a more efficient manner. The Third challenge faced by him was the problem of ineffective communication and coordination which was resulting in the ineffective control on the people who were working for him. The fourth dilemma faced by him was to develop effective coordination and communication with all the promoter shareholder of his company. The Hinduja family is spread across the globe having different and independent nine members. Giving personal, effective and independent opinions and solutions to everyone in this vast organisation become a difficult task where numerous events take place at every second. Lastly, the in-house counsel or the general counsel also faces the hindrance of applying new, innovative and effective ideas in such a difficult time frame.
New Changes a GC has to Adapt and Learn during and after COVID-19
When Mr Paramjit inquired Mr Vinod about the new changes a GC has to adapt and learn during and after COVID-19, Mr Vinod commented that what we as a human race and as In House Counsels are witnessing is a pragmatic change in industries, businesses, offices and workload. Hence what we need to understand is how to walk in this digital era time. The first challenge is the challenge to work from home. The second challenge is how to incorporate, adopt and adapt new skills in these changing times. The third problem is the problem of rapid rescaling within one department in a company. The four challenge faced is the transition from an area of specialisation to an era of imbibing knowledge in all the spheres of law and life as gaining vast and diversified knowledge in more than one aspect of the law has shown to be the demand of COVID-19. Fifthly the EC should also work on effective communication in the digital world. By explaining his personal example of having legal teams working in three different jurisdictions of Mumbai, Dubai and Johannesburg, sir explained the difficulties he faced to keep at par with everyone.
Mr Nilanjan answered the same question in a different manner. According to him, it has become a necessity to learn, adapt and adopt technology in the legal delivery system. One also needs to learn the change pertaining to the contours of collaboration i.e. the manner of collaboration, its outcome and its beneficiary rate for everyone around him. Another important change which one has to incorporate is how to create consensus when there are disagreements and Zoom or Google Duo is the only mediums to solve such discrepancies. Another change required to be learnt is to work with lesser resources. One more change which one should imbibe to keep abreast of the amendments made in the sphere of liquidity, land, law and labour.
When invited to comment on the manner in which companies should embrace the new change in the workplace, Mr Deepak answered that the impact of such a crisis in present and future both will be very deep and everlasting. Offices will shrink and the focus will change from delivery rather than to the physical presence of the employees. Retaining talent will continue to be a challenge and legal functions will also change to ‘physical less people’.
The Changing Role of Technology in Managing the COVID-19 crisis as An In-house team
When inquiring about the changing role of technology in managing the COVID-19 crisis as an in-house team, Mr Chaitanya replied that knowledge has made the life of an in-house counsel much easier during these unusual times. COVID-19 provides everyone with a Silver lining advantage and opportunity to modernise their legal services and keep them abreast with the new technology in the market to help us. His personal example of using technology for e-signatures and how it enabled the signing of numerous documents throughout the country in such a difficult time seems worthy to be noted. His second personal favourite example was of E-court proceedings as normally a proceeding would take place every week in different parts of the world and it was not easy for a GC is to be present in all such hearings there but the new system of e-court proceedings (if they are made or normal procedure after COVID-19) would enable all the GCs to personally monitor what is happening. Last important example explained by him was the automation of contract which basically helped the in-house councils to focus on customising the contract and negotiating the terms.
The Cyber Risk Surrounding Bank Transactions
As the last sub-topic of discussion in this webinar, Mr Paramjit asked Mr Nilanjan about the cyber risk surrounding bank transactions in today’s time. Mr Nilanjan was of the view that withdrawing money from a bank, which used to be a very simple task was now made very difficult and therefore numerous customer services and customer delivery service began happening on the digital platforms. To protect everyone from the cyber risk ICICI as a responsible bank has dispersed an abundance of information to the customers about the steps they should take to protect themselves and their transactions. Such a process is making people more aware and updated about cyber risks and banking norms. Sir also discussed the fraud vicious links which get circulated. According to him, the banks have been way ahead of the curve by creating chat boxes where they do not have wait for a reply from the legal teams for quick and immediate responses.
Impact on Contract, Dispute Resolution Post COVID
This question was posted to Mr Deepak Chauhan about the contracts. He mentioned risk mitigation would undergo a complete change, other areas that would gain importance include creditworthiness, supply chain issue, credit balance would become important. Force Majeure now needs to be well documented. The life cycle of the contract would now undergo a sea of change by coming down. He also mentioned in the current scenario, due diligence is not easy in current times. Negotiation process would go online. Regarding dispute resolution-he mentioned he foresee luxury litigation which is part of Indian culture would come down. Mediation would catch up especially online arbitration. He also foresees, the court will decide certain matters online going forward.
India has become Emerging World Focus
Mr Abhijit highlighted the role of China in the world centre stage and how it has so far been playing an influential role to be at the world’s position. Acquisition parameters are changing. He has put emphasis on India is at the centre stage once again, it is for us to see how we free our policy, remain stable, the decision to be taken very fast to catch up with the limelight.
To put the In-House Panellists at a much easier and lighter mood, the Moderator and Co-moderator involved the panellists in a quick and witty rapid-fire round where they were asked to answer questions like ‘One thing which you have learnt during this pandemic’, ‘Interest or Hobby imbibed to beat stress and feeling of uncertainty at home during COVID-19’ and ‘One advice to the other In-House Lawyers to be successful General Council’ only in one word or one sentence.
The session was brought to an end with the Question and Answer round which consisted of more than 100 live questions.
RAPPORTEUR OF THE ARTICLE KAANCHI AHUJA Legal Intern at INDIAN LAW WATCH III student of BA. LL.B.(Hons) Ideal Institute of Management and Technology (affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University [GGSIPU]), Delh
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