India’s rapidly growing art mart, conservatively pegged at around Rs 4,000 crore annually, is attracting marquee legal firms, making it the latest sought-after vertical on India’s legal canvas.
Law firms including Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), Khaitan & Co, DSK Legal, Dentons Link Legal, Anand and Anand are already providing niche art law services while others are waiting on the sidelines. Says Rishabh Shroff, scion of CAM and co-head of the firm’s market leading private client practice specialising in family governance and estate planning, a lot of clients are either investing in art or have inherited large art collections. “They want to make sure that the collections are legally protected and due diligence and veracity of the seller’s title are flawless.”
“Our art law work sits as a parallel offering to our mainstream private client work, where for example we incorporate holding large art collections in a family trust. Or we help a client set up a museum for charitable purposes where they can showcase their art to the public. It is a part of our internal offerings to high profile clients,” he adds.
A lot of large business houses have large art collections too which are part of their CSR initiatives. For instance, the Piramal Art Gallery in Mumbai is one of the only galleries of its kind which exhibits works of famous photographers as well as other forms of visual art.
The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi and the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum and the Baroda School of Art are other well-known corporate initiatives for promoting art.
Debottam T Bose, India’s first art lawyer who has been practising art law since 2009, says “art law has been a specialised field in the West as part of private client services offered by law firms and chambers. Over the years the global art market size is estimated at a whopping $60-70 billion.”
The rise in collection activity in India, coupled with the significant increase in the value of art, antiquities and other collectibles, justifies greater attention to these works by all stakeholders, says Chandrima Mitra, partner, media and entertainment laws at DSK Legal, which was the first law firm to create an art vertical five years ago in partnership with the Mumbai-based Aura Art Development, a leading integrated art infrastructure solutions provider. Lamenting the fact that only a handful of law firms have a comprehensive understanding of art law which is still “not a recognised sector and therefore is a largely untapped space,” Mitra feels there’s an urgent need for comprehensive reforms in the area.
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