Law firms

Hengeler Mueller advised Indian pharma company Lupin on buying the assets of German pharma company Temmler Pharma which was advised by German firm CMS Hasche Sigle.

Hengeler partner Daniela Favoccia, counsel Patrick H Wilkening, partners Dirk Uwer and Christian Hoefs, counsel Andrea Schlaffge and associates Daniel A Spitze, Abhijit Narayan, Anne Broll, Lars Mesenbrink, Susanne Koch and Alla Hajut acted for Lupin.

This is Lupin’s fourth overseas acquisition in 2015 reported Mint. It has acquired pharmaceutical companies in Russia, Brazil and Mexico earlier in 2015, strengthening its portfolio, the report said.

Crawford Bayley promoted senior associate Sumit Vadhavkar to associate partner in its real estate practice, effective from 1 October. Vadhavkar will help the firm deal with increasing mandates in the commercial leasing space.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) can now file for clients in the Supreme Court, having registered its own Advocate-on-Record (AOR) firm after the shared AOR firm of the erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas was reconstituted.

Nishad Nadkarni will join the Khaitan & Co Mumbai office as an associate partner in its IPR team after resigning from Legasis Partners, reported Bar and Bench.

Nadkarni graduated from Symbiosis Law School in 1999 and has worked at firms such as Singhania & Co, AZB & Partners and DSK Legal before his stint at Legasis Partners.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi corporate principal associate Soumya Kanti De Mallik has joined HSA Advocates as an associate partner on 1 October.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai-based lateral hire Abhishek Sinha, who was reportedly poached in April from Khaitan & Co where he was an associate partner, will return to Khaitan & Co as an associate partner, according to several authoritative sources.

Trilegal has promoted five to the first rung of its all-equity lockstep partnership.

Khaitan Sud & Partners (KSP) opened a second office in September, in South Delhi, moving its recently built corporate-focussed team to the new office under partner Tanuj Sud.

Bajaj Finance general counsel (GC) Sapan Gupta will join Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas in December to spearhead a national banking practice from Mumbai.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) associate partner Faraz Sagar has joined Trilegal as a partner in Mumbai.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has acted for the owners and existing investors of Paytm, including One97 Communications, which saw a $575m investment from Chinese e-commerce and internet behemoth Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Financial, which drafted in Trilegal in Mumbai.

IndusLaw advised Accel and AZB & Partners advised International Finance Corporation on their $37m (Rs 247 crore) co-funding of Healthvista alongside investors Qualcomm Asia Pacific and VenturEast which were advised in house. Healthvista runs home healthcare company Portea Medical.

Indus Bangalore partner Kartik Ganapathy, senior associate Basava Rao and associates Ramya Sridhar, Vivek BN and Mary Sebastian acted for Accel.

AZB Delhi partner Amrita Patnaik and senior associate Dushyant Bagga acted for IFC Portea raised $9m from Accel, Qualcomm Ventures and VenturEast in December 2013, according to VC Circle.

Khaitan & Co Kolkata associate partner Sucharita Basu and principal associates Sanjay Basu and Anshumala Bansal left the firm on 19 September, to start up Aquilaw.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised Fidelity Growth Partners on investing $9m (Rs 60 crore) in Shadowfax Technologies which was advised by Avigna Law.

JSA Delhi partner Manvinder Singh, senior associate Zain Pandit and associates Sonali Kapoor, Ritika Arora and Akhil Bhardwaj acted for Fidelity.

Bangalore-based Avigna Law partner Chitra Raghavan acted for Shadowfax.

Fidelity made $9m the infusion through its investment arm Eight Roads, into shadowfax which is a hyperlocal delivery services start-up for restaurants and retailers, reported VC Cirlce.

China’s law firm with the largest turnover, Dacheng, has generated $350m (RMB 2.25bn) in fees in 2014 with a lawyer headcount of 3,112 and 1,156 partners, followed by King & Wood Mallesons (China) with revenues of around $280m in 2014 and 1,104 lawyers.

AZB & Partners advised India’s largest doctor discovery platform Practo Technologies on its over $10m buy of smaller rival Qikwell Technologies India which was advised by Nishith Desai Associates (NDA).

AZB Mumbai partners Ashwin Ramanathan and Nilanjhana Singh and senior associate Parthasarathi Jha acted for Practo.

NDA Bangalore partner Vaibhav Parikh and associates Sangeeta Rana and Shreyas Bhushan acted for Qikwell.

Practo has bought four businesses in the last five months, including Qikwell, reported Mint according to which the other acquisitions were Insta Health, product outsourcing firm Genii and FitHo.