Compliance is Serious Issue for Corporates: Justice Kurian Joseph

Delivering the keynote address at the Global Legal Summit organized by BW Legal World on December 12, eminent jurist and former judge of the apex court in the country Justice (retd.) Kurian Joseph touched upon some of the critical issues facing the business and the legal fraternity including the debate on whether to allow foreign law firms to practice in India, the issue of compliance faced by the corporate sector, entrepreneurship and its role in the modern day law firms, and the role of mediation and arbitration in solving legal issues.

"The legal sector has become the service sector and legal services have taken the shape of the corporate sector," said Kurian.

"Everything is corporate now. Everywhere we find the culture of death, culture of untruth, culture of darkness. It is very difficult to find a culture of light," said Kurian. He listed 'compliance' as one of the pressing issues facing the business community in today's India. "Today compliance is a big issue. Founders of businesses from promoters, CEOs to CFOs - if you ask them, ‘what was the single biggest issue affecting the corporates’, they would say compliance has become a serious issue," Kurian pointed out.

Turning focus on the state of legal services today, Kurian asked whether the corporate culture stepping into the legal world is changing the nature of service. "We wouldn’t have even thought of corporate law firms 10-15 years back. It has never been thought of as a business. In fact, it has always been recognized as a service, a different and distinguished type of service. It is into that service now the corporate culture has stepped in,” he said. 

Kurian blamed the high fees charged by the lawyers as perhaps one of the reasons of corruption creeping into the legal services. “One recent cause of the service sector in the country having become corrupt is because of the enormous fee you have to pay to the lawyers. If you speak to the lawyers they will say that they are in the service sector, we also need to be either swimming or sinking, but we want to swim and if you have to swim, you have to be in the forefront,” he pointed out.

Addressing a distinguished gathering of lawyers, legal experts, heads of law firms and those providing legal services to the corporate sector, Justice Kurian said he considered 'mediation' and 'arbitration' to be some of the better ways of handling legal disputes. “We have come to the mode of arbitration. True arbitration begun from 1940 onward. It took the face of a fast tracking act where business officials were put into arbitration. I have an experience of having done a number of arbitration in the past one year,” he said.

"There are three ways of getting legal service–court, tribunals and arbitration. Mediation is better though," I feel. "For example, mediation works in Singapore very well. People get to know when to turn, where to turn, how to turn and why to turn. On all these four counts you will find answers via mediation," Kurian added.

Ending his address, Kurian wished the team of BW Legal World all the best for its future endeavors. "I am sure that the initiative of BW Businessworld will be really helpful in the corporate, legal and service sectors,” he said as he signed off.