In Conversation with Kritika Krishnamurthy, Partner, AK & Partners

Kritika, would you please tell us where did this illustrious journey begin and at what age did you decide to study law. Please walk us through your early years of education and the decision of becoming a lawyer.

I am a compulsive reader. I read whatever comes my way and I generally cannot sleep without reading. In my childhood, I did not have access to libraries or a constant supply of new books. This was much before Flipkart and Amazon. So, I ended up finishing literature books including a bulk of Shakespeare from the secondhand book market meant for graduate-level students. Similarly, I ended up reading the textbook for Secretarial Practice and Organization of Commerce of my elder sister when I was around 15 years old. I was intrigued and hooked instantly. I asked her where I could read more about company law and business structures. She told me I should become a corporate lawyer. Unlike many teenagers of my generation, I actually went to the internet café to do real research. I read up and found out about national law universities. Applied to around 4 of them in the pre-CLAT era and got through Gujarat National Law University (GNLU).

Who have been your guiding mentors and the biggest inspiration in this journey?

I have learnt a lot from the other Founding Partner of my law firm- Anuroop Omkar. His grit, resilience and fire-fighting skills especially in high-pressure transactions always inspire me to emulate him.

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

I am one of the Founding Partners at AK and Partners. We are a full-service law firm which is heavily into regulatory practice like Banking and Finance, Insurance as well as related technological offshoots like Fintech and Insurance-tech. We also regularly undertake other work like private equity, mergers and acquisitions, foreign investment and general corporate. We pride ourselves in providing niche commercial negotiation services. We have a sizable dispute resolution practice including litigation up to Supreme Court of India, arbitration and mediation advocacy. We also undertake

litigation and advisory related to direct tax, indirect tax and international taxation especially related to transaction structuring. Around 85% of our clients are foreign investors in India including those who have set up subsidiaries and joint ventures in India. The remaining are purely start-ups and MSMEs. This allows us a wide array of work.

I am also an honorary director with Bridge Policy Think Tank. It is a new age think tank which is probably the only think tank in India which aims at a holistic approach to legal policy through research, advocacy, capacity building, stakeholder outreach and government advisory. Policy is going through some exciting times. There is active work in the banking and finance space, data protection, artificial intelligence, healthcare and education. New fields like agri-tech are emerging. The work here is very dynamic. People expect mundane research from policy think tanks but it involves so much more hands-on the organization of events, creating talking points which reflect the commercial, on-ground perspective of stakeholders at the same time making relevant policy recommendations which are suitable for adoption by the government. I hope more young lawyers show interest in this space.

Would you please summarily tell us the current status of the sectors of the economy your work in, the roadblocks in our path and the way forward? 

Our regulatory practice has kept us busy. We were privileged to help Federal Bank in the issue of credit cards during lockdown. The banking sector is undergoing an interesting metamorphosis with innovations like fintech and neo-banking. The confusion around moratorium has created liquidity issues for the sector but we hope this will soon sort out. 

Although the private equity market is presently seeing a downtime, some of our startups actually received acquisition offers. Some of them are in the process of closing the deal. We also saw an increase in interim finance transactions of our clients through issue of hybrid instruments and convertible debentures to tide through the COVID situation. 

In the dispute resolution practice, we were able to help our clients with negotiating favourable deals by resorting to institutional mediation and providing our services for negotiation and mediation advocacy. So, the courts closing and going online did not hamper our practice as much. 

Taleb and Kahneman are two of your favorite authors. Please tell us more about the lessons about Corporate Transactions that you’ve learnt from their books. 

Taleb and Kahneman are both celebrated behavioral economists. Kahneman has actually won a Nobel Prize for his work. Their work helped me develop mental tools to think more practically in terms of how the corporate world actually works. For example, the YES Bank crisis. Although the bank was eventually acquired, AT1 bonds of INR 8,415 crore are being written down are predominantly held by mutual funds, PFs and insurance companies. So, corporate entities who put their skin in the game were the biggest losers and this does not give a good signal to institutional investors wanting to invest in India.  

For example, let us take the case of sustainable development and climate change. Mr. Taleb calls things like these things imposing virtues on others. It is difficult to bring these changes because they increase the costs of present systems or require a business to overhaul an entire system. However, if this same responsibility is packaged in a way that is commercially sustainable, the change is adopted and even becomes viral. An example is the hospitality industry before COVID. Many high end hotels agree to change your bedding and towels only if you leave them in a particular place or leave a sign for them to do it because it is also environmentally sustainable. This also reduces the cost of laundry which reduces recurring expenses. Same is the case of serving water in glass bottles instead of packaged drinking water. An opposite example was seen in the solar industry. Solar is environmentally more sustainable and easily replaces coal. It has done this in many jurisdictions already. When the sector begins in a jurisdiction, a lot of businesses swarm in to participate. It contributes to sustainable development. And a solar market generally begins with high tariffs which also improves profitability of a company. The problem with solar is that it is so efficient that the cost of solar power falls becomes equal to other sources and then almost reaches zero. When this happens, the market loses its viability for private players. Internationally, this is called the death spiral and interestingly we don’t have an answer on how to make such a transaction commercially viable except governments adopting solar completely and private companies jumping jurisdictions to find another country with sustainable tariffs. 

What can law firms do today to ensure they survive in an era of disruption? How is your firm staying futuristic? Are there any aspects of corporate transactions that you think AI will be able to take over in the near future? 

According to Aurobindo, disruption is necessary to make way for construction and a new future. I heartily agree. Regardless of the amount of disruption, there will always be room for those lawyers who can think out of box and provide an original analysis or thought process to their clients. 

AI is a reality we must accept. It is on the cusp and will become a part of not just legal but many other industries in the near future. They may become handy tools to prepare first draft of commercial documents, board and shareholder resolutions etc. The human resource engaged in due diligence is poised to shrink considerably. 

However, I believe that the commercial agreements and transaction documents shall still require a once over by real human beings. Then real, commercially feasible inputs shall become valuable. Same is the case with due diligence. May be AI can collate data and point out lapsed licenses. But just like an SLR camera cannot completely mimic the human eye, it takes a human eye to see patterns in financial statements and an AI taking over this function of legal audit may take some time, if it is at all possible. 

We are presently in a dark era where there is excessive focus on voluminous research, too many template transaction clauses and too little focus on original analysis and correlation of the gamut of laws- their history and why they were put in place. AI can help us de-clutter and help us focus on these things. 

Smart contracts powered by AI and blockchain can be gamechangers but we presently lack the ecosystem to make them workable. We will have to promote Central Bank Digital Currency in India and faster forex remittance alternatives to SWIFT to make them a solution to the problem of contract enforcement in India. 

Many Congratulations on joining the BW Legal World Elite 40 Under 40 Club of Achievers 2020. What to your mind has helped you get to where you are? 

I love what I do. It gives me the motivation to approach every transaction, legal opinion and dispute resolution with a vivid interest to learn something new and deliver something that is commercially feasible and generate maximum options for the client to choose from. The focus of my team on analysis allows us to deliver solutions as against repetitive transaction structures. Once you get a name in the industry as a problem solver, more challenging work keeps coming your way and it becomes a cycle. 

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our lawyers of the future, any golden piece of advice from the treasure trove of your experiences in the industry? 

My advice to others would be that you can realise your true potential only if you know yourself. Only you know what sets you apart from others and how you can add most value to the work you do. It is important to recognize what makes you special and work to hone those skills and make them even better. Also, even the best of intentions, talent and IQ will only take you so far. Finally, what wins is your willpower, your ability to bounce back from failure and your never say die attitude. 

Also, legal policy research is going to become an upcoming field of legal practice. Indian policies and laws have become dynamic and we need talented, openminded thinkers to contribute. Policy research in India needs to go beyond collation of present research and international parallels. 

As a final note, would you please recommend to our readers your favorite book or movie/series that left a lasting impression on you. 

For me, this is perhaps the most difficult question to answer. I would rather recommend two books. The book that changed my entire perspective and approach to life is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I have actually followed the financial advice in the book and found it very useful. I have interestingly used it in lectures for Indian regulators to teach them about financial statements and psychology of entrepreneurs. 

The second book that is very relevant to the present times is Factfulness by the Roslings. In the present era, legal research has become pulling out articles and quoting them. Many times during COVID even reputed newspapers have wrongly reported legal and policy interpretations. Factfulness is a reality check that just because an idea is famous or easily available, it does not become a fact. 

*Interviewed in October 2020

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