News

UAE Exchange Financial Services associate director legal Mandakini Sharma has moved from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai to join a subsidiary of Swiss pharma major, Roche Diabetes Care India, as its head of compliance, as first reported by VCCircle.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) has doubled the inspection fee for law colleges in India again, for the second time in 2 years.

Essar Power general counsel (GC) Sumant Nayak will be joining Desai & Diwanji as a partner in Mumbai.

According to a report in The Guardian, 2000 Oxford University modern history graduate Faiz Siddiqui has filed a £1m claim in a UK court against his alma mater, alleging that the “appallingly bad” and “boring” instruction meant that he did not obtain a first (the highest possible grade) but only a 2:1 (the next highest grade) in college and therefore lost out on becoming a successful international commercial lawyer.

The Bar Council of India (BCI) talks to come up with a new proposal to reform its regulation of the legal profession, have been shrouded in secrecy due to a media gag order since October.

"American Express Ventures, the corporate venture investment arm of American Express Co, has led a $4m (Rs 26.6 crore) funding round in fintech startup IndiaLends, its second transaction in the country in as many months,” reported the Economic Times.

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections may be postponed to January, out of fairness to the SC advocates whose names were removed without proper notice from the SCBA voter list, if the election committee agrees to the request of presidential candidate Adish Aggarwala.

The Supreme Court today refused to entertain the petition of BJP leader and lawyer Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay, who seeking to get an order to make playing of the national anthem compulsory before court proceedings from the same bench that had on Wednesday passed a controversial order making the playing of the anthem in cinemas mandatory, reported PTI.

“With his extensive experience in corporate law at the head of Singapore’s largest law firm, Mr Lucien Wong will provide a fresh perspective when he takes over as Attorney-General in January, lawyers said yesterday,” reported The Straits Times about the country’s “first A-G who has not spent time on the Bench or at the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC)”.

A bench of justices Dipak Misra and Amitava Roy ordered that in line with states such as Maharashtra, all cinema halls in India must play the national anthem before movie screenings in order to “instill a sense of committed patriotism and nationalism” in citizens.

Weil Gotshal & Manges associate Nitin Konchady, who is a 2006 graduate of NLSIU Bangalore, has been promoted to partner in the London banking department’s Europe-focused high yield debt practice area in a partnership promotion round of 13, according to the firm’s press release.

DH Law added intellectual property (IP) lawyer Hasit Seth to set up an IP and Technology vertical for the firm, as a partner in Mumbai.

Dhananjay Shahi, former senior vice president legal at Religare Enterprises, has joined Baring Private Equity Asia’s newly set up lending arm as head of legal and executive vice president.

Today’s special letter from me exclusively to our dearest subscribers again has a lot of fun and interesting content. I won’t spoil it for you, but if you’re interested, please subscribe below at a tier and with benefits of your choosing.

The official website of the Bar Council of India (BCI) at www.barcouncilofindia.org has gone offline, after its domain name apparently expired on Saturday 26 November.

The 10th All India Bar Exam (AIBE) is not even in the pipeline almost nine months after the 9th AIBE, after the Bar Council of India (BCI) notified on the official AIBE website that it has not yet decided the exam date and that candidates should “kindly keep visiting” the AIBE website for further update.