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Newsletter Issue 2: Corporate monsoon

In our second newsletter we summarised the top events of the week, which saw IPOs, M&A, politics and family-ties. Click below to read on and enter your details here to get the next one straight to your inbox:

12 June 2009 - Mumbai monsoon has been postponed by a week, said the Met Office...

But the corporate deal flow appears to have begun trickling through: most law firms are getting busier and the pipeline is slowly swelling.

Part of the driver will be the government, which has put two of its earlier divestments back on track. For the Oil India IPO, much of the mothballed documentation will now have to be revised by the earlier advisers Amarchand, Ashurst and Luthra & Luthra.

Although the rates the government pays are known not to be the best in the market, most firms would love to have these deals on their mantelpieces.

More M&A activity hit last evening with India's second-largest iron-ore acquisition of all time, which J Sagar Associates and Luthra & Luthra thrashed out in the sea-side state of Goa.

In the post-election aftermath, the political world has continued its dance around legal liberalisation. While Law Minister Veerappa Moily came out as a softly-spoken proponent for foreign firms (although as one reader helpfully translated, he had actually "said nothing"), the Bar Council was unimpressed after its first meeting with Moily.

The story provoked a heated debate on the issue, as well as on whether Indian expats at overseas firms were "glorified law clerks".

In our first on-line poll, half of readers voted for full legal market liberalisation immediately and around 30 per cent for a limited Singapore model of entry. One tenth advocated waiting another year or two and another 10 per cent proposed calling off the talks and keeping the status quo.

AZB was more domestic as the family got its second Attorney-General this week, as well as moving into a new home in Noida from new Delhi. Apparently the old office was bursting at the seams.

And one of the senior partners at AZB's international best friend Clifford Chance will come and visit AZB for several months, we reported last Saturday.

Visit LegallyIndia.com this Saturday for another interesting story – it appears that lockstep is becoming all the rage in India…

In any case, we will let you know if this time next week it is pouring in Mumbai. Even if not quite yet in terms of deals.

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