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.
DSK Legal collaborates with specialists in the field, various art infrastructure solution providers, international law firms and experts and accountants having the relevant experience.
Roshnek Dhalla, counsel at top law firm Khaitan & Co, agrees. This space, she says, has been neglected in India. “For nearly 50 years, the main statute governing different facets of antiquities and art treasures has been The Antiquities and Art Treasures Act of 1972. There is an urgent need to amend the law,” she says. Art is no longer just an ornament on the wall but is now looked upon as an ‘alternative asset class’. In fact, the definition of ‘capital assets’ under the Income Tax Act, 1961 has been amended to include ‘works of art’ just a couple of years ago,” Dhalla says.
Moreover, with art gaining global recognition and the government’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme, allowing individual residents to make remittance abroad to purchase art, “the complexities revolving around this sector require a more structured legal approach,” Dhalla opines, adding that collectors and investors must navigate a myriad of legal issues, including provenance disputes, authenticity concerns, taxation, and international trade regulations. Clearly the time for art law has come, she says.
For its part, the government too has thrown its weight behind evolving legal and regulatory landscape. This includes the Museum Grant Scheme, Exchange Control, Stamp Duty, Income and Indirect Tax, GST and the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, Rules and declarations made thereunder, the law amendments, amongst others. Bose, however, feels that Indian laws are still not fully geared to tackle the myriad legalities of art law. “The 100 year rule of the Indian Antiquities Act. 1972 needs an update urgently as I feel it’s a blanket catch all and a lazy way of doing things,” he quips.
Bose’s law chamber in New Delhi regularly assists clients on due diligence, provenance verifications when clients are purchasing art works as art has spawned a very sophisticated market of fakes and forgeries. “Out of 100 works we vet, 10 are fakes when it comes to Indian Masters. Equally when there is a dispute, we resort to alternative dispute resolution to resolve problems and not burn any bridges. I want to see more first time art buyers, but more needs to be done to encourage them.” Currently, Bose, who has law chambers in London and Delhi, conducts full internship programmes for lawyers who want to become specialists in art law.
Rishiraj Sethi, director of Aura Art, also pitches for a robust art law framework in the country so that all the stakeholders can operate together with mutual fairness and trust. To create awareness about the nuts and bolts of art law, Aura Art has forged a tie-up with global law firm Dentons Link Legal to bring out a first of its kind “Art Law E-Book” in December 2024.
Nusrat Hassan, managing partner, India, Dentons Link Legal, says apart from being an expression of the artist, art has transformed into an asset class, and therefore, requires legal protection. “I think it’s important to create the awareness that you need to protect this asset class if you are looking to pass it on to generations and use it beneficially as a part of your assets,” he says.
