By Aparna Deb,News18

Copyright news18

India Inc’s legal costs surged 11% to Rs 62,146 crore ($7.27 billion) in the last fiscal year, with Reliance Industries, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Coforge, Infosys, and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) emerging as the top five spenders.
The rise in expenditure was driven by increased overseas deal activity, heavy spending on dispute resolution, and growing compliance costs, according to data from the annual reports of the top 500 companies compiled by ETIG.
In FY24, Nifty 500 companies had spent Rs 56,016 crore ($6.72 billion) on legal matters, with the top 50 firms by market capitalisation accounting for most of the outgo. In FY25, legal spending by Nifty 50 companies rose 10% to Rs 20,640 crore.
Among the top spenders, Reliance Industries incurred Rs 3,459 crore on legal expenses, followed by Sun Pharmaceutical (Rs 3,261 crore), Coforge (Rs 1,664 crore), Infosys (Rs 1,655 crore), and L&T (Rs 1,615 crore).
Typically, legal costs cover litigation and arbitration, professional fees, regulatory filings, penalties, and stamp duty, among others. Hemant Kumar, group general counsel at L&T Group, attributed the rise to robust M&A and cross-border deal-making, adding that adherence to regulations and compliance pressures also drove costs higher.
The top five sectors by legal spending were pharmaceuticals (Rs 10,776 crore), information technology (Rs 9,520 crore), finance (Rs 4,625 crore), oil and gas (Rs 4,126 crore), and capital goods (Rs 3,870 crore).
Experts believe legal costs will continue to rise. “Legal expenses are a necessary cost of doing business. With regulatory complexity, litigation risks, and growth in corporate transactions, legal spending will only increase,” said Sujjain Talwar, partner at Economic Laws Practice (ELP).
Despite the jump, legal costs made up just 0.39% of the Nifty 500 companies’ total revenues of Rs 1,57,13,552 crore in FY25, which rose 6.9% from Rs 1,46,99,064 crore in FY24. Total profits climbed 10.4% to Rs 15,66,345 crore in FY25.