Law firms

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas has hired AZB & Partners’ Mumbai HR head Kiran Patheja for its HR function, as head of talent acquisition, reported Bar & Bench.

The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) is not yet sure how to deal with the government’s surprise rule change that might see foreign law firms open up in special economic zones (SEZs) such as the Gujarat International Financial Tec-City (GIFT).

Link Legal India Law Services (LL-ILS), which merged with DH Law Associates in December to form a 155-lawyer firm with a partnership of 35, has added Rajdeep Choudhury as an associate partner in its project claims practice.

HSA Advocates has added the principal associate (PA) designation as the seventh rung to its career ladder ending in equity partnership. Former Reliance ADA Group in house lawyer Kunal Rajpal has joined the firm as its first principal associate.

As first reported by Live Law this week, the ministry of commerce and industry, which has been spearheading the government’s efforts to liberalise the legal market, alongside the law ministry, has revoked a ban on the practice of law from special economic zones (SEZs), by issuing a notification in the Gazette of India amending the Special Economic Rules governing Special Economic Zones on 3 January 2017.

ANM Global, which had been set up in 2009 by Nidish Mehrotra and Anuj Gupta, has hired Citi vice president Binay Kumar Mishra as a senior partner to head the firm’s banking and finance practice from Mumbai.

Former Milbank Tweet Hadley & McCloy counsel Sanjeet Malik has joined Samvad Partners in Delhi, reported Bar & Bench.

IndusLaw has hired Sandeep Grover as a partner in litigation from Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, where he was a principal associate in Delhi.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas has acted on $40.4bn worth of mergers and acquisition in the 2016 calendar year, according to researcher mergermarket, with AZB & Partners having recorded $30.1bn of M&A deals in the same period.

"Gurgaon-based developer Vatika Group on Friday secured Rs 700 crore funding from Altico Capital and has closed the first tranche of Rs 475 crore,” reported Mint.

Mumbai-headquartered SNG & Partners has started a stressed asset resolution practice by hiring Kishore Srinivasan, who had been working at Edelweiss Alternative Assets Advisors as executive vice president until January 2015 from 2010, reported VCCircle (paywalled).

News Corp-backed real estate portal PropTiger said on Tuesday that Mumbai-based Housing.com will merge with it in an all stock deal, and that it will receive $50 million in fresh funds from News Corp.’s REA Group Ltd and $5 million from SoftBank Group.

"EcoCentric Management Pvt Ltd (ECMPL), a Mumbai-based e-waste management firm, has raised its first round of growth capital from a couple of high net worth individuals (HNIs). The funding will be utilized to increase capacity and expand its reach pan-India,” reported Enablers Investment.

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft special counsel Sinjini Saha, who is a 2004 graduate of NLSIU Bangalore, has been promoted to the US law firm’s partnership in London.

"International Finance Corp (IFC), the private sector investment arm of World Bank, on Thursday said it has invested $125m in Hero Future Energies, the renewable energy arm of the Hero Group, for an undisclosed equity stake.

Delhi University 2004 graduate Amit Kataria has been elected to Morrison & Foerster’s partnership in Hong Kong, as part of a round of promotions to new partners.