Litigation

Luthra & Luthra senior partner Vijay Sondhi, partner Sanjay Kumar and associate Varun Pareek acted for Yahoo! India in Vinay Rai V Facebook & Ors where a Delhi Tis Hazari criminal complaint filed against Yahoo! for posting allegedly obscene content on its website, was quashed by Delhi High Court. [BBC]

Luthra & Luthra senior partner Vijay Sondhi, partner Sanjay Kumar and associate Varun Pareek acted for Yahoo! India in Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi Vs. Facebook & Ors where a civil suit for injunction was filed in the court of the Additional Rent Controller against Yahoo for allegedly posting obscene content on its website. The court allowed Yahoo’s application for the deletion of its name from the list of defendants but imposed costs on it. [Mail Today]

Corporate and M&A

Khaitan & Co associate partner Abhishek Sharma with principal associate Niren Patel advised data and news provider Thomson Reuters, which was also advised by US law firm Dickstein Shapiro, in its acquisition of the US and Indian business and operations of media intelligence solutions provider RedEgg Solutions. RedEgg drafted in Induslaw, alongside Massachusetts-based law firm Morse Barnes-Brown & Pendleton.

Amarchand & Mangaldas partners Reeba Chacko and Arjun Lall advised Californian venture capital fund Sequoia Capital in the $100m (Rs 512 crore) partial sale of its equity in HSB Partners-advised dental and eye-care health care provider Vasan Healthcare, to Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), which was advised by AZB & Partners. [Financial Express]

AZB & Partners partners Shameek Chaudhuri with associate Manan Mehta advised Indian integrated power utility company Tata Power in its acquisition of 50 per cent stake in its newly formed South African energy joint venture (JV) with its Indian subsidiary Khopoli Investments and South African diversified resources company Exxaro Resources. The JV is called Cennergi. Bowman Gilfillan partner David Anderson was South African legal counsel for Tata. Exxaro was advised by South African law firm Webber Wentzel partner Ernie van der Vyver.

AZB & Partners partner Abhijit Joshi with associate Jaitra Jani advised Satyam Computer Services in its Rs 1.35 billion ($27m) acquisition of international operations of US-based business process outsourcing firm, vCustomer Corp which was advised by Delhi firm Kundra & Bansal.

AZB & Partners partners Ajay Bahl and Anil Kasturi advised L Capital, the private equity arm of luxury conglomerate LVMH, in its Rs 150 billion ($30m) acquisition of Luthra & Luthra-advised Wolfensohn Capital Partners’ 8 per cent stake in Indian ethnic wear chain Fabindia, which was advised by Mohinder Puri & Co[Legally India]

Debt capital markets

MV Kini & Co has acted for Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) in its recent public issue of tax free bonds to raise Rs 3,000 croresfor its business of lending money to entities involved in power sector. The Kini team consisted of managing attorney Ravi Kini and partner Sumit Gupta, with principal associates Vidisha Krishan, Ashish Suman and Nilesh Chandra, senior associate Shailendra Somvanshi and associates Shailender Sharma, Puneet Parihar and Harkirat Singh.

Khaitan & Co partners Devidas Banerji and Daksha Baxi and Clifford Chance, advised Austrian development bank Oesterreichische Entwicklungsbank (OeEB) in its external commercial lending of Rs 101 crore ($20m) to Indian infrastructure company SREI Infrastructure Finance, as well as on the taxability of the interest income and other charges in India receivable by OeEB pursuant to its facility agreement with SREI.

Amarchand & Mangaldas partner Kalpataru Tripathy with principal associate Vineet Bansal and senior associate Promode Murugavelu advised telecom company subsidiary Tulip Date Centre Services in its Rs 250 crore ($49.13m) fundraising from ICICI Bank which was advised by Argus Partners.

AZB & Partners partner Sai Krishna Bharathan with associate Ananya Sharma, with London corporate law firm Macfarlanes advised Indian pharmaceutical company Amneal Pharmaceuticals in its Rs 1.35 billion ($27m) external commercial borrowing from the London branch of Bank of Baroda, which was advised by UK law firm TLT Solicitors.

J Sagar Associates partners Dina Wadia with senior associates Uttara Kolhatkar and Arka Mookerjee, along side Allen & Overy partner Andrew Harrow advised Barclays Bank London, Deutsche Bank Singapore and Citigroup Global Markets London, who are the dealers in Bank of Baroda's medium term note program which was updated from Rs 77 billion ($1.5bn) to Rs 154 billion ($3bn).

Equity capital markets

AZB & Partners partners Kalpana Merchant and Varoon Chandra advised investment banks Standard Chartered Securities and JM Financial Consultants, which were the book running lead managers in the recently concluded qualified institutional placement by Tata Group’s retail arm Trent which had a market capitalization of Rs 2.25 billion ($45m).

Private Equity

Amarchand & Mangaldas partner Arjun Lall advised NBFC Mannapuram Finance on the shareholders agreement in its purchase of Rs 130 crore. of shares sold by private equity investors led by Baring India and Sequoia Capital which were advised by Luthra & Luthra law offices. [Legally India]

J Sagar Associates (JSA) partners Upendra Nath Sharma and Sidharrth Shankar with senior associate Pallavi Puri and associate Mudita Roy advised Mauritian private equity (PE) fund India Industrial Growth Fund (IIGF) in its Rs 250 million ($4.8m) purchase of 26 percent equity in hardware manufacturer DTL Ancillaries which was advised by DSK Legal partner Raksha Kothari. IIGF has an option to invest a further Rs 200 million in DTL.

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