The Mumbai office of law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last week, in connection with the Nirav Modi scam.
Cyril Amarchand is understood to have been instructed by Modi - who has not worked with the firm before - less than a month ago in a matter, before the scam came to light.
We understand that the firm cooperated with the CBI and handed over all documents related to the Modi mandate to the CBI.
The banking-related mandate with Modi is understood to have been terminated by the firm, after the scam came to light on 14 February.
The firm declined to comment when contacted.
Modi is under CBI and enforcement directorate (ED) investigation for a suspected fraud involving state-owned Punjab National Bank, whose officials allegedly advanced fraudulent letters of credit to billionaire Modi’s company causing a loss of up to $1.8bn.
As one lawyer without a horse in this race told us a few days ago, “Nirav would have been a marquee client” to most firms in the past.
For instance, Luthra & Luthra had been instructed by Modi-promoted Firestar Diamond on its plans for initial public offering (IPO) that were first mooted in 2016 until as recently as December 2017, but never came to fruition (in relation to that issue, Khaitan & Co had been briefed by the future issues’s managers Kotak Bank, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch).
And DSK Legal is understood to have worked with Modi’s company in the past on standard corporate transactions and deals.
Besides being a billionaire client, he would also have been a respected acquaintance in legal socialite circles: Luthra & Luthra managing partners Rajiv Luthra and Karanjawala & Co managing partner Raian Karanjawala, for instance, were both mentioned by name in Nirav Modi's press release about the launch of its Delhi flagship store in 2014.
After the scam broke, advocate Vijay Agarwal has apparently been representing the fugitive Modi, to borrow Arnab Goswami's words.
It is understood from sources that Bombay high court senior advocate Amit Desai may also have been instructed.
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Also, while it may seem that the whole world would know about something like this, I don't think any mainstream media house had caught wind of it yet - remember, as a lawyer, you would likely hear about lawyerly news way before non-lawyers...
Our media may be deeply broken and useless most days, but I don't think there's a reasonable conspiracy here (so far, in any case).
All you report is inter-firm transfers and basic law firm gossip. So you do not have any locus anyway.
But since I care about your health, I hope I would not be overstepping my bounds in suggesting you quickly close the LI tab, particularly the comments section, and go back to B&B or other reading before you get a heart attack from too much excitement.
That said, I think a little dig at a publication in the comments (with a winky emoji) about a rival passing off our scoop as their own without attribution (as they often do) shouldn't be too bad for anyone's health.
I am sorry for the harsh words, since I read LI on a regular basis as well. Since you have already called my feedback as constructive, I really wish you do more court reporting. That way you could also add dimension and increase readership. I could help you with your first story. Calcutta High Court is observing cease work for over a week now. Basically a strike to protest the delayed judicial appointments. Great story to cover, it would be.
I went into the metrics in a comment a few days ago (see link), so I won't get into huge detail on that again.
www.legallyindia.com/fun-and-games/of-course-it-was-a-lawyer-who-finally-broke-arnab-nirav-modi-counsel-keeps-anchor-on-ropes-for-23-minutes-20180223-9127#comment-111442
Suffice it to say, I think that strategically it simply does not make much sense right now to focus on the courts on a day-to-day basis. I agree that's regrettable, because I really love covering litigation and all the important and the crazy stuff that happens there, but then again, Live Law and B&B and the newspapers are doing a pretty decent job in the courts already...
Isn't it better to have a media ecosystem that's diverse with different approaches, rather than everyone chasing the same stories and eyeballs?
I am happy to accept LI won't be for everybody, but that's ok. Often when you're trying to satisfy everyone, you end up satisfying no one.
However, I hope to continue to keep things interesting and innovative going forward: we have some cool things in the pipeline.
There are cases of people in school stealing our stationary and books. In university even when they can't speak or write one sentence in English,using influence to get 1st rank in law which of course you can't prove against them but people know. So the actual intelligent students lose their 1st rank. In office colleagues steal ideas.
People steal spouses, cash, property, work, patents, peace of mind, peace of body. All kinds of stealing happens. It's sad and its everywhere.
What to do?
So if another publication re-reports our scoop, that's fair game and good for the overall informational ecosystem. My only gripe is that attribution of a place of where something exclusive was first reported is common professionalism and common courtesy in my book, that's all. :)
1. People don't have courtsey
2. They steal
3. Such things are everywhere
4. There are worse things than scoop not credited.
5. Chill
6. Enjoy life.
Cheers
Clearly this round goes to B&B! Its simple.. both of you had the scoop.. but its just better business sense of journalism on B&B part for this story.
Having said that I am a staunch LI fan & the content it carries. Really.. don't wanna read B&B for all that gyaan at the end of a day's work in a lawyers life.
A paywalled scoop is still a scoop, so a second rehashing of that story that adds zero new details and doesn't acknowledge the original scoop, is simply bad form journalistically at best, unethical at worst (though pretty much standard practice in the mainstream Indian media ecosystem, where TV channels and TOI would like to pretend no one else exists).
If that's the game B&B want to play, fine, but I will happily call them out on it and point out more consistently ethical rivals such as Live Law :)
And both are conducted under different section of law.
Samaj ne wale samaj gaye.
Na samaj ko kya samaj hain.
Keep it going Kian.
An honest bystander to a dishonest transaction.
I am not well versed with us law, but there may be the confidentiality I absolute with no exceptions.
Police would be within their rights to investigate any illegslity. Hence the raid.
If they find any intentional illegality on part of lawyers there's a problem.
"It is also understood that the firm has never dealt with Nirav Modi or his companies prior to this."
This is followed by - "We attempted to reached out to Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas several times for comment before running this story. However, the firm has declined to comment on the same."
This looks suspect! Almost as if CAM vetted the story for B&B and added a few caveats 'unofficially' - not showing very high journalistic integrity?
What do you think?
I also heard from sources (as we had included in our story) that NiMo was not a regular client of the firm, but whether CAM has never ever dealt with him or his companies may be a tad too emphatic a denial perhaps?
Or maybe I am, who am I kidding... I don't really have an opinion on this so much - yes, it's unfair, but connections is also what makes the world go round. And, most of the time, people who make it purely on the basis of their connection without any merit, won't go very far. Then again, Trump and half of the senior advocates at the bar are counter examples...
Comment 20 and 20.1 refreshed my memory and I recalled similar case.
But once it was all in public domain & even reported in newsprint, LI 'had' to disclose the name of firm being raided by CBI. Cyril Shroff owned part of erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas, now called Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
even now the content severely diluted reads like 'A cought red handed by cops...but in the past B and C were also involved in somewhat similar activities'. C'mon put this straight, CBI has raided Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and NOT any other law firm or Advocate!!!
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