Vodafone arbitration case: Anuradha Dutt's knock seals vital win

Dutt is a senior partner at DMD advocates, the law firm that represented Vodafone at The Hague

When she is not busy preparing for her legal matters, she is glued to the latest edition of the Indian Premier League. After all, Anuradha Dutt (pictured) once represented India on the international stage.

This time, her international outing was of a different kind. She is a senior partner at DMD advocates, the law firm that represented Vodafone at The Hague.

On September 25, UK’s Vodafone Group won an international arbitration case against the Indian government over a retrospective tax demand of Rs 20,000 crore.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled that the conduct of India’s Income-Tax Department was in breach of ‘fair and equitable’ treatment. The tribunal ruled that the Indian government’s imposition of a tax liability on Vodafone was in breach of the investment treaty agreement between India and The Netherlands.

In a career spanning over 30 years, Dutt has worked on various cases but this one was her firm’s first international arbitration case. Nearly half a dozen lawyers worked on the case, which required extensive reading sessions.

The international arguments of the Vodafone matter were handled by Harish Salve and Toby Landau on behalf of DMD Advocates.

“Unlike Indian courts, International courts give more weightage to written documents as opposed to oral arguments, and that required a lot of homework. We took it as a challenge and worked very hard with Harish (Salve) on the case. It was our first international case,” Dutt told Business Standard.

Anuradha Dutt, senior partner at DMD advocates

Now DMD Advocates has six international legal cases with three being active cases. The firm is representing Vedanta Resources in the Cairn Energy case over retrospective tax claims.

“In international arbitrations, one award is not binding on others but we hope that it (Vodafone case) will have persuasive value in future,” Dutt said.

After working for Khaitan and Co. for five years, Dutt ventured out and started her own law firm with another woman lawyer Vijayalakshmi Menon — DM Advocates, would later become DMD Advocates in 2007 as it merged with Fereshte Sethna who ran a firm called Dunmorrsett, and later DMD Advocates inducted male partners as we wanted gender equality. The firm hired its first male member Rashi Dhir in 2012.

“We wanted male participation our office and therefore hired a few men to have a gender balance at workplace,” she said.

Having battled skepticism and discouragement from senior lawyers over her gender, Dutt managed to carve a niche for herself and her firm that she co-founded with like-minded people and she considers herself lucky to have represented her client in India’s first ever international arbitration case.