Law firms

Kolkata start-up Aquilaw has partnered with Supreme Court advocate on record (AOR) Vikas Mehta and advocate Vikram Mehta, for a presence in Delhi.

Themis Partners advised Sequioa on its $34m (Rs 220.39 crore) co-infusion in ethnic handicrafts website Craftsvilla. The other investors in this round were Lightspeed Venture Partners advised by Luthra & Luthra, Global Founders Capital advised by Tamara Thompson , Nexus and Apolleto which was advised by US based firms Tamara Thompson and DST Global services.

Themis principal associate Ashwani Verma, senior associate Dheeraj Khanna and associates Rayan Azmi and Abhishek Dwivedi acted for Sequoia.

Luthra partners Deepak Joyce and Shinoj Koshy with managing associate Neha Sinha and associate Akansha Dalal advised Lightspeed.

Earlier this year Craftsvilla had rasied $1.5m from Lightspeed and Nexus, as reported by Medianama.

Kochhar & Co Hyderabad head and partner VVSN Raju, who had merged his firm Juris Prime Law Services with Kochhar in July 2011, demerged from Kochhar in September.

AZB & Partners former Mumbai partner Kalpana Merchant, who resigned from the firm in early September, has joined P&C Legal, the Mumbai arm of Bangalore headquartered firm Poovayya & Co that was started headed by AZB alum Vishnu Jerome.

Khaitan & Co and _Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom_ acted for clinical trial service provider Bioclinica in its aqcuisition of global pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs and IT services provider Synowledge. Synowledge was advised by Goodwin Procter and Nishith Desai Associates (NDA).

Khaitan partner Rajat Mukherjee, executive director Daksha Baxi, associate partner Kabir Bogra, principal associates Monika Srivastava, Ritu Shaktawat and Sameer Sah, associates Nidhi Killawala, Sanchit Agarwal and Shreya Shree and Skadden Arps partner Robert Pincus, counsel Faiz Ahmad and associate Vincent J Cannizzaro acted for Bioclinica.

NDA partners Mansi Seth and Nishchal Joshipura and Goodwin partner Stuart Rosenthal and associate Oreste Cipolla acted for Synowledge.

Synowledge employs around 500 persons in North America, Europe, India and Japan. The founder of Synowledge, Sankesh Abbhi would serve as senior vice president and head of global safety and regulatory solutions at the merged entity reported Outsourcing Pharma.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised renewable energy company BLP Energy on its $33.8m (Rs 220 crore) acquisition by Italy’s Enel Green Power which was advised by Khaitan & Co and Ashurst Singapore and Italy.

JSA partner Sidharrth Shankar and associates Prakriti Jaiswal and CV Srikant acted for BLP

Khaitan Mumbai partner Joy Jacob and Ashurst Singapore partner Keith McGuire acted for Enel.

This year US-based SunEdison and First Solar, Russia’s OAO Rosneft, China’s Trina Solar, Japan’s SoftBank and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology have either invested or evaluated investing in the Indian renewables sector, reported Mint.

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.