The BRICS Legal Forum will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa (SA), on 8 and 9 December 2023, and will be hosted by the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA). De Rebus, News Reporter, Kgomotso Ramotsho, spoke to the Executive Director of the LSSA, Anthony Pillay about the importance of legal practitioners attending the upcoming BRICS Legal Forum.
Kgomotso Ramotsho (KR): What is the significance of legal professionals participating in the BRICS Legal Forum?
Anthony Pillay (AP): The objectives include, among others, seeking to provide for a fair, just, and equitable economic partnership that benefits the countries’ societies, especially in the developing world. The legal profession is best placed to ensure that disputes are resolved via arbitration, with rules applicable across all BRICS countries so that international companies have certainty on the rules applicable, financial structure, and taxation implications and that awards are implementable.
KR: As the host country, will the BRICS Legal Forum have an impact on the landscape of the legal profession of SA, and what might some of those impacts be, or put differently, is there a benefit for the legal profession as a whole?
AP: The legal profession understands that for our country’s national interest, professional services must be rendered to international companies that might have commercial arbitration requirements. This allows the expertise of large commercial transactions to be arbitrated in SA, covered by a South African arbitration centre with registered and qualified South African arbiters. The same applies to South African companies implementing and working on international projects in SA who can readily bring their disputes for arbitration.
This benefits the legal firms regarding access to arbitration work and the various commercial entities involved, both locally and internationally.
KR: What can legal practitioners attending the BRICS Legal Forum for the first time expect?
AP: They will see the myriad opportunities and skills necessary to deal with intellectual property rights, taxation, financial company structures, company law and commercial arbitration.
The BRICS Legal Forum serves as an open, permanent platform for legal cooperation and professional exchange of ideas between lawyers of BRICS countries, as well as the promotion of legal diplomacy using law as an instrument for economic cooperation and social development. The Forum provides legal support for political, economic, and cultural development of its member countries and BRICS cooperation mechanism. Its focus is on improving the discourse and decision-making powers of the establishment of a more justified international order and system.
To attend the BRICS Legal Forum, legal practitioners can register on the website at: https://bricslegalforum.org.
Kgomotso Ramotsho Cert Journ (Boston) Cert Photography (Vega) is the news reporter at De Rebus.