Law firms

Phoenix Legal has acted on a Rs 308m ($6.5m) microfinance securitisation of 42,000 micro-loans for IFMR Capital.

Khaitan & Co and Wadhwa Group's in-house counsel have closed Mumbai's largest land deal of the year, in the 18.18-acre land purchase in the eastern suburbs of Mumbai from Hindustan Composites (HCL) for Rs 571 crore ($125m).

Wadia Ghandy Mumbai and Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi have helped GTL Infrastructure in acquiring Aircel's telecom tower business in an all-cash deal valued at Rs 8,400 crore ($1.84bn).

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has engaged the former chairman of the Customs and Central Excise Settlement Commission Jogendra Singh as an indirect tax senior adviser, making it the second senior expansion of JSA's tax practice in two months.

Wadia Ghandy won the Mumbai ELP Masters Cricket Cup 2010 yesterday in a reversal of last year's final against Economic Laws Practice's (ELP) powerful batting line-up.

A final-year NUJS Kolkata student has set up and is running a legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm of seven lawyers.

Hariani & Co has moved into a new office almost twice the previous size in Mumbai offering, after one of its partners relocated from Bangalore.

Dua Associates has circulated a statement to members of the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) after 41 Dua lawyers and nine partners are now confirmed to have joined breakaway firm Tatva Legal. Tatva has also responded with its first public statement.

Desai & Diwanji acted on 24 M&A deals in the 2009 calendar year, placing it at the top of data provider mergermarket's M&A league table by volume. Amarchand Mangaldas topped the table by value, having advised on M&A deals worth $6.4bn in 2009, while Khaitan & Co and AZB & Partners also gave a strong showing.

In December 2009 Luthra & Luthra slipped past Khaitan & Co into second place in the initial public offering (IPO) league tables after acting on three IPOs with Khaitan bagging two instructions. Crawford Bayley took three deals and drew level with AZB & Partners as the fourth busiest Indian IPO firm, while Amarchand Mangaldas built up its lead with five mandates.

United Arab Emirate (UAE) firm Musthafa & Almana is starting up to four offices in Kerala and South India.

FoxMandal Little Delhi has hired KR Chawla & Co's corporate head and the general counsel (GC) of Patni Computer Systems as partners. Several senior partners have also entered into a sale-and-leaseback of the firm's Noida head-office to steady its cashflow.

Bangalore private equity (PE) boutique Lexygen and the Mumbai and Gurgaon offices of Vaish Associates have acted in the Rs 22.5 crore ($4.5m) investment by Zephyr Peacock India Fund in a telecom service company called Metro Wireless Engineering India (Metro Telworks). 

Law firm lawyers turned out in force for the Maharashtra and Goa Bar Council elections yesterday, having left ALMT Legal partner Hitesh Jain feeling confident of winning a seat by a comfortable margin.