Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi office has scooped the mandate to merge Vedanta’s Sterlite Industries unit with Sesa Goa to decrease the mining conglomerate’s debt.

Amarchand Delhi managing partner Shardul Shroff alongside partners Mr Kalpataru Tripathi and Pallavi Shroff, principal associates Vineet Bansal and Shweta Shroff are the team working on several aspects of the scheme of arrangement, merger and amalgamation, confirmed the firm.

The combined revenue of both entities would be around $14bn, according to ANI, and the deal would reduce the debt of Vedanta by 61 per cent to $3.8bn, reported Bloomberg on Saturday (27 February).

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) announced new merger control regulations on Friday, which among other changes exempt intra-group mergers of wholly owned subsidiaries from CCI clearance. Indian Corporate Law Blog criticised the new regulations in its blog for the “absence of an effective consultation process”.

Shweta Shroff, who works in Amarchand’s competition practice, said that the Vedanta deal would nevertheless be subject to merger control clearance, since the new relaxation of the regulations only applied to wholly owned subsidiaries.

In August 2010, AZB & Partners Mumbai acted for Vedanta in its purchase of Cairns India for $9.6bn, opposite S&R Associates. Luthra & Luthra had advised Sesa Goa when it was first acquired by Vedanta in June 2009, with J Sagar Associates (JSA) acting for the seller.

Update: Luthra senior partner Mohit Saraf and partner William Vivian John advised the banks led by Citibank on the deal.