With Kaustav gone, the only person in CAM Competition who was around from the AMSS days, has left. Trust the Chief ▮▮▮ to wear everyone down except for ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮.

Quite amusing that CAM - with one of the biggest large-ticket transactional practices - now has a supporting antitrust partnership bench strength smaller than Chandhiok and P&A and only the same as DSK and ELP.

What makes this even more amusing is that all the ▮▮▮

When firms don't find roles to promote GenX partners given their lack of leadership chops, this happens. Many will never go higher as they have made their own glass ceilings. Some of it is down to the limiting practice area, a lot of it is down to how some have conducted themselves as potential leaders in public. The constant drama from this practice area is a symptom. From the client side we cannot help, we have eyes and ears plus experience being there ourselves, sometimes we nudge but in the end we have relationships to preserve. Good luck to those who push off on their own.

Listen - this is not meaningful work. Most of this work can be done by the deal team itself. The deal teams themselves grumble about this. Most of these green channel filings do not require more than an SA sitting on it. Gatekeeping CCI interactions are how most practices explain their existence. In merger control, some Form Is , and most Form IIs, are the only places where competition lawyers earn their money.

Interesting that you pointed out green channels, which btw were only a handful filings in 2025 - you can verify this number if you so wish. Out of a total 134 combination approvals, only 18 were green channel filings. If you really think it is that easy to do or manage, feel free to do all CCI work from the deal team. Your argument has another flaw - you assume all work needs to create some hype or meaning around it. Not every M&A deal does that, and neither will every CCI filing be meaningful. Given the thresholds, only big ticket M&As get notified in India - and there’s a reason why the practice area exists as a specialised area across the world. Nobody wants to pay lakhs or sometimes crores for run of the mill filings. You could do it if it was that easy and absent of any meaning, but are you? Form IIs and especially complex ones have also been rare off late - that says something about the M&A market itself and not much about the practice area. You will understand if you really know how overlaps work since you being part of deal team know everything about competition law.