含羞草社区

Future in dispute

What is on the cards for 含羞草社区 arbitration centres?

The government has seemingly moved away from this once-preferred method of dispute resolution. For a long time arbitration was considered as the preferred alternative to the traditional method of dispute resolution, given the unmanageable caseloads handled by courts.

But arbitration has faced setbacks due to its high costs and awards being frequently challenged before courts. To exacerbate matters, even the government’s faith was seen as weakening with a June circular favouring mediation over arbitration for government departments. With the state being the country’s biggest litigant, this change in attitude calls into question the significant investment put into the development of institutional arbitration centres in India.

Our Cover story talks about the journey and growth of arbitration centres in India which, while seemingly successful in their own right, are somewhat stunted when compared to arbitration centres in the region and around the world. Parties from India account for a significant number of users at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, and domestic centres have a long way to go to catch up. Whether it be the historical preference for ad hoc over institutional arbitration, or insufficient encouragement by the courts to refer parties to institutional arbitration, arbitration centres have been weighed down by a number of legacy issues.

This issue’s Spotlight looks at the reasons behind Indian unicorns establishing themselves on foreign shores. The country holds the distinction of having the largest number of such unicorns (startup companies valued at more than USD1 billion that are privately owned and not listed on a share market) in the world. This has been rooted in multiple reasons including discouraging laws, complex regulatory compliance requirements, etc.

However, our article finds that an inverse trend of “reverse flipping” has also taken place in the past few years, where Indian startups that shifted their ownership structure to a developed jurisdiction are now returning to India via inbound mergers. This is likely a trend that the government will want to encourage through reforms, even as the allure of overseas ecosystems persist.

Numerous legal battles are playing out between international media giants and AI companies, which are backed by the tech giants themselves, over the use of their articles and other media for training the latter’s generative AI. At this time, the government can draw inspiration and take lessons from the careful manoeuvring of AI in the arena of intellectual property.

Our What’s the deal? takes a deep dive into the many problems at the intersection of AI and intellectual property law – personality rights, hallucinations, legal rights of AI, etc. Many ambiguities exist when taking into consideration AI’s ability to creating something new through “inspiration” from existing material found on the internet. These are fast developing issues that have been addressed to some extent in other countries. India is in an advantageous position to already have examples to learn from and develop suitable regulations, and doing so will lead to significant business opportunities related to IP in India.

Be sure to read Vantage point, which looks at an insurance sector showing growth and development due to a variety of factors such as economic growth, an expanding middle class, innovation and increased awareness. Priya Misra and Shatakshi Komal, from online insurance marketplace InsuranceDekho, talk about the many ways the sector’s regulator, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, is attempting to further increase the penetration of insurance in the market across sectors. Several reforms and amendments have been introduced by the regulator in the past year, and the authors categorise each by intent and impact assessment for insurance intermediaries.

This issue’s Intelligence report explores the state of the legal industry in India, looking at shifts that have occurred in the past year. As part of our annual survey of law firm managing partners, a variety of responses were received. There was much optimism among the profession’s leaders for the upcoming year, and they were not fazed by the prospects of foreign law firms setting up shop in India, nor the greater representation of the opposition in parliament under the Modi government’s third term.

However, issues that resonated highly across practices, and that have persisted over the years, were the high level of movement and attrition in the industry, as well as the induction of technology in law firm operations.