Former Amarchand Mangaldas Gurgaon-based IP partner Ranjan Negi, who resigned from the Shardul Shroff managed region of the firm last month, will join Shardul’s brother’s split firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas with his team of five.

Negi is joining with principal associate Rekha Dabas and senior associates Pallavi Rao and Prashant Jha.

Update 15:01: Negi commented: “It's a very good opportunity for all of us that we decided to take for our professional growth.”

Shardul Amarchand corporate principal associate Aarti Joshi will also be joining Cyril as a salaried partner.

Cyril Shroff confirmed the moves and commented that he was “very pleased” to welcome the new hires.

Negi confirmed his joining but was unable to comment further at the time of going to press.

We have reached out to Joshi and Shardul Shroff for comment.

Cyril and Shardul Shroff told Legally India and Mint in interviews earlier this month that they had not entered into any non-compete agreements, though Cyril said that it would be “some months at least” before they would laterally hire from each other, noting: “In that sort of a bloodbath everyone benefits and not us. Both will lose, so we'll just be mature about it. There is enough talent elsewhere in other firms.”

Shardul had said: “We are competitors—when we start new firms obviously we are not carving the market in an anti-competitive way. We are true competitors and don’t have any bilateral non-poaching.”