Law firms

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.

Luthra & Luthra has promoted six managing associates to partner level, reported Bar & Bench.

Rajani Singhania & Partners has promoted three principal associates to associate partner in Delhi: Abhimeet Sinha, Abhishek Kumar and Yaman Deep Kumar, according to a press release from the firm.

Sinha specialies in project finance and infrastructure, Abhishek Kumar and Yaman Deep Kumar who began their careers in 2007 with Singhania & Partners focus on litigation and arbitration.

Senior associate Sumit Gupta specialising in land acquisition and dispute resolution was promoted to principal associate.

AZB & Partners has promoted five of its lawyers to partner level after 12 months of partners leaving and joining in the Mumbai region of the firm.

Delhi-based corporate and disputes firm Kanth & Associates added a chief executive officer (CEO), Nishant, in August and opened a second Delhi office to accommodate its growing corporate practice team.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) acted for First Carlyle Ventures Mauritius, whose affiliate is advised by The Carlyle Group, and the promoters and management shareholders of telecoms software company Elitecore Technologies Limited, in their sale of 100 per cent of Elitecore for Rs 180 crores to optical fibre maker Sterlite Technologies, which was advised by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas partner Santosh Janakiram and partner designate Himanshu Dodeja.

JSA partner Vikram Raghani and senior associates Anand Lakra and Avinash Jethwani led the team for Carlyle.

JSA had also advised First Carlyle Ventures Mauritius during its initial investment in Elitecore. The deal will expand Sterlite’s broadband offering, reported PTI.

The New York judiciary is to decide whether to approve a proposal to allow foreign lawyers to advise in litigation and transactional matters on a short-term basis in the city, which is currently allowed by nine other US states, though those lawyers would only get a temporary licence and wouldn’t be allowed to set up offices there or practice local law.

"In light of the increasing globalization of business and law practice. New York’s role as a center of world commerce would be enhanced by permitting lawyers from other jurisdictions to appear in this slate to work on transactional or short-term litigation-related matters (so-called “fly-in. fly-out” events),” the New York State Office of Court Administration said in a letter this month,

reported Wall Street Journal.