In Conversation With Anand Shah, Partner, AZB & Partners

How and when did you know becoming a lawyer was your life’s true calling?  

In the year 2002, after giving my 12th Standard exams (with Science) and getting distinctive grades, I would have chosen a degree in engineering by default - I had not even considered taking up law until then. 

Something (I don’t know what) made me take up law as a career choice then – strange, because I don’t come from a family of lawyers nor was law a highly paying profession unless someone in your family ran a firm. Nonetheless, I can say that knowing that becoming a lawyer was my life’s true calling was when I started working in my third year of college in 2004 – I thoroughly enjoyed what I did every day and continue to do so till date. 

Would you please tell us about your specialisation and the array of work you handle at your firm?  

This is best summarised in a quote by my Managing Partner, Ms. Zia Mody: “In a world full of specialists, Anand Shah shines out as a generalist who has the distinct advantage of having a 360 degrees view in each matter he works on.” 

I have had the privilege of having a diverse practice breadth thanks to the firms I have worked with and my team. I lead the financing practice at the firm out of Mumbai including the aviation finance practice and have built a strong team of lawyers having the ability to undertake some of the most complex debt transactions in the country. As part of my M&A, private equity and corporate commercial practice, I represent a significant number of multinational companies and private equity funds as well as promoters, HNI’s and the corporate and industrial houses built by them. 

I also represent a few select start-ups and their founders, mentoring them through their journey from early stage to reaching unicorn status and beyond. Given the significant representation of promoters and HNI’s over the years, I have also become their trusted advisor and am involved in their succession planning exercises, both on the personal as well as business side – I lead the private client practice of the firm.  

What are your predictions for 2022 in the area of specialisation mentioned above? What are some of the upcoming trends of the industry?   

M&A activity in the country is at an all-time high. Tech enabled companies are seeing astronomical valuations and a large part of the M&A is driven by them in addition to traditional industry. I see this trend continuing for the foreseeable future. And to support the M&A activity, structured financing opportunities will continue to thrive. 

The trend currently is to acquire and/or develop asset light models – this is likely to continue in the near future but a few years into the future, once the distribution channels are re-aligned, I suspect that the eagerness to support the distribution by building or acquiring hard assets at the back end will kick in. 

One recent landmark judgement or the best judgment of 2021 that you’d like to share a word about.  

The Supreme Court in the case of PASL Wind Solutions Pvt. Ltd. v. GE Power Conversion India Pvt. Ltd. delivered its latest pro-arbitration judgement in April 2021, wherein it strengthened the fundamental principles of party autonomy in arbitration cases by clarifying that two Indian parties can choose a foreign seat of arbitration. The Supreme Court further upheld the right of parties to such foreign seated arbitration to obtain interim relief from Indian courts. 

This decision will now allow foreign companies with Indian subsidiaries to choose foreign arbitral seats like London, Singapore etc. in their arbitration agreements even if the subject matter of their contracts and counterparties are entirely situated within India. This will significantly aid parties in cross-border transactions and allow parties with multinational presence to streamline disputes by opting for a uniform seat across countries.  Additionally, in choosing a foreign seat, Indian parties and their foreign parents can also take comfort in knowing that the Indian courts can remain available and would be willing to grant interim relief in their arbitration.  

As a new age lawyer, what to your mind is the one thing in the current legal ecosystem at the Bar, Bench, or in the Law Firms that needs our attention.  

In my view, as lawyers and within our ecosystem, a lot more can be done with technology – it is not to say that it is not being done, but the way this tech enablement has supported other industries and sectors, I do think we are far behind. 

Many Congratulations on joining the BW Legal World Elite 40 Under 40 Club of Achievers 2021. What to your mind has helped you get to where you are and what advice would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction?  

One may be a great lawyer but without an able team to assist, one cannot scale beyond a point. My focus on training & mentoring the junior crop has allowed me to build an enviable & fiercely loyal team, which has provided us the ability to service clients well, and the practice has therefore multiplied manifold. And all of this functioning under a reputed institution like AZB & Partners adds tremendous value for all stakeholders i.e. the clients as well as the lawyers.  

The collegiality with my peers at the firm and outside adds to the mix and provides me access to specialised advise & inputs whenever needed. 

A large number of clients have grown significantly over the years, where apart from legal advice, key strategic & commercial advice at the right time has been a contributing factor. Clients recognise this and have therefore been extremely loyal and publicly acknowledge my role in their growth.  

My advice to the younger lawyers is simplistic – it is an approach I have followed - work hard, be sincere, do not cut corners, be nice to peers, colleagues and clients – and the rest will follow. 

As a final note, would you please recommend to our readers your favourite book that left a lasting impression on you.   

Whether it is the Supreme Court of India in the recent Pegasus order, or philosophers transcribing the notion of excessive control by governments, the political approach behind George Orwell’s 1984 is still germane seven decades later. The portrayal in 1984 is of a society that is disengaged from established legal norms and surveillance by the government (Party in the book) is the hegemonizing order for all citizens, whose executor is the Thought Police. 

This depiction advances the idea that it is only the government that regulates and determines what constitutes acceptable thoughts and speech. Today, with debates surrounding Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act in the United States, and the Indian government’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which are argued to infringe upon free speech requirements by tracing down the originator of information, Orwell’s idea of a totalitarian society necessitates certain discourse in 2022. 

In 1984, surveillance was not considered just necessary, but the only way to govern the social norm. The attitude of a majority of citizens across jurisdictions today has become one of submission to the technologies which hinder privacy; equated to 1984, where the idea of self-governance and democratic thought remains tarnished by the Thought Police. 

Orwell’s lines “You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized”, would continue to live on in the decades to come as technology & social media germinates within the roots of our existence, and evolution of new realities, such as the Metaverse, converges with our daily lives.