Law firms

"A week after the Essar group signed a mega $12.9bn deal to sell Essar Oil and Vadinar Port to Rosneft of Russia, three banks — ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Standard Chartered Bank — have received over $2.5bn (around Rs 16,750 crore) from the Essar group towards repayment of loans to Essar Global,” reported the Indian Express.

Kochhar & Co added ALMT Legal partner Gautam Bhatikar as a senior partner and co-head of the Mumbai office of the firm. Bhatikar has joined the firm with ALMT senior associate Zoeb Cutlerywala.

The seven largest law firms in India have grown their headcounts by an average of around 20% in the last one-and-a-half years. Of those, the fastest-growing such as Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Khaitan & Co, had expanded fee-earner headcounts by 45% and 35% respectively, while others such as AZB & partners’ partnership ballooned by 75%.

The Supreme Court is close to banning the sale of firecrackers in Delhi, as it today said it will soon pass an order prohibiting the licensing authority for the sale of firecrackers from issuing new licenses. It will also ask the authority to suspend existing licenses and to recall the existing stock of firecrackers with sellers.

"Detergent major Nirma, which in July had agreed to buy the cement business of the French major Lafarge India, today raised Rs 4,000 crore debt to fund the deal, making it the largest rupee bond sale for a leveraged buyout,” reported Money Control.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) added former Ashurst London senior associate Akshay Kishore as an associate partner in Mumbai.

"In one of the largest deals in the retail real estate market in India, Dutch pension fund asset manager APG Asset Management and Virtuous Retail, the retail development arm of The Xander Group, have partnered to form a joint venture worth $450m, the companies said in a statement,” reported VC Circle.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) Chennai head and partner Karthik Sundaram left the firm on 14 October to go into counsel practice, around 14 days after former managing partner Rohan Shah formally retired from the firm to become a counsel.

As first reported by us in August, two PwC indirect tax experts have now joined in partner-equivalent positions as executive and associate directors in Mumbai.

Opening up of professional services appeared to have been discussed by the delegation headed by UK prime minister Theresa May with the Indian government today, with British justice secretary Elizabeth Truss having said that May would “pave the way for UK lawyers to practise there” after she was asked about the progress of liberalisation in the UK parliament.

"The Rs 1,112.50-crore IPO of Varun Beverages was subscribed 1.86 times at a price band of Rs 440-445. The public issue was open during October 26-28.” reported the Economic Times.

Argus Partners merged with Mumbai firm P&P Legal, adding its founding partner Prakash Panjabi as an equity partner and Panjabi’s son and the other P&P Legal partner Pritish Panjabi as a partner in its Mumbai office.

Siddharth Raja, who was a co-founder of Narasappa, Doraswamy & Raja that later became Samvad Partners, will join Argus Partners in Bangalore as a senior partner and national executive director, with a remit to also oversee the firm’s Chennai practice.

“State-owned NBCC’s share sale garnered 1.54 times subscription from institutional buyers, who put in bids totalling more than Rs 2,700 crore,” reported the Economic Times.

"ECL Finance, a part of the Edelweiss group, has raised Rs 502 crore by selling masala or rupee-denominated bonds to overseas investors in its debut issuance of such securities. Sun Global Investments, London and Emirates NBD Bank, Dubai are the global coordinators and joint lead managers on the transaction,” reported the Economic Times.