Please stop this “tier this, tier that” nonsense. It’s irrelevant.

C&M is arguably the only firm in India that genuinely specialises in competition and company law disputes—disputes being the operative word. The only other firm that once fit this profile was Gaggar. However, the main man, Mr Gaggar, is now a designated Senior Advocate, and it’s unclear what remains of the firm as a disputes practice.

Specialist firms have existed in India far longer than we like to admit. Anand & Anand is a specialist Tier-1 firm in the IP space. Hon’ble Ms Justice Pratibha M. Singh ran a specialist IP practice prior to her elevation. Vinod Dhall ran a specialist practice in the competition law advisory space. Obhan pre-merger was a Patients first firm.

On salaries: as a disputes-first firm, C&M’s junior-level compensation will never compete with Trilegal, SAM, CAM, or Khaitan at the A0/A1 level. That said, there is significantly greater scope to negotiate a larger share of the spoils for “business you originate as an equity partner”, compared to a large, full-service Tier-1 firm. The reason is simple. This is a semi-family-n-feins -run firm—lean, tightly structured, and without the insane operational overheads of firms like the aforementioned T1’s. Which, quite plainly, leaves more to go around…

Let’s have more intelligent conversations going forward. Please!

Please get your facts straight. The Delhi office is a specialist litigation chamber of Junior Mr Chandhiok, masquerading as a law firm—as it should, for the sake of professionalism and the credibility that large clients like Google expect, and rarely receive, from Indian litigators. It shall operate as such until the Delhi High Court or the Supreme Court designates him, and—mark my words—that will happen.

The evidence for this is clear as day, with Karan actively appearing in his own matters. And to all the individuals slimily attempting to imply that any success of the firm has everything to do with “daddy dear”: you should be ashamed of your shallow and baseless commentary. The fact that clients of the calibre of Google trust Karan to argue their most important matters is proof enough of his own credibility as counsel.

They have the same tier-1 level internal politics. The junior level partners guarding the doors and ensuring no real talent walks into the firm (to ensure zero threats to their existing position) - look the place has few good senior partners, KC is generally a good human, work at this place for a while, and then figure out something better. But this whole “mirror mirror who’s the fairest/most tier1 of them all” business is silly.

I dont care about salaries, but what was landmark about it?

In short, Kerala HC said no interference. Supreme Court affirmed it during an admission hearing. This is regular 26(1) stage shenanigans before a writ court that I have seen since 2012. Even if you bring the sectoral jurisdictional issues, that is as old as the PGNRB cases.

It is the CCI who is the main party defending a jurisdictional turf war, undoing the damage of constant misinterpretions of the Bharti judgement. The same thing has been pointed out repeatedly before in other cases and before other courts. The luck with the roster helps.

Even with a commercial lens, it got pushed to Kerala from Bombay after years. I am sure the investigation has been kept in abeyance. Was interim relief granted? So till now this has been a run around for Asianet. Now with settlements, if the parties smell a bad order, they can settle down the road. So this may not evolve into something precedent setting.

Ultimately, these are writ jurisdiction matters and not appeals. They are administrative in nature and barely involve competition law. A landmark case is one decided by the SC in India when you have statutory appeals. Most appeals are just parking matters in the SC pleading a legal issue already admitted for tagging.

Either ways its not like the SC registry remains a blackhole for competition cases. In abuse of dominance cases we still have not heard about NSE or DLF and its fast approaching two decades of distinguished and deliberate fumbling by all concerned. There are even judgements reserved never pronounced.

India is still figuring out the contours of competition law enforcement after 25 years. In less time than that the US made the Sherman Act, built schools of thought and decided to break up Standard Oil - that is 21 years from 1890 to 1911. Even the EU took just 16 years to get to the Conti Can. Competition law here is not serious. With this supposed landmark case we are still figuring out the basics of a rebate case.

Not just the abuse of dominance cases, cartelisation too. The 2016 cement cartel appeals remain pending too. If the SC is not clear on the issue of interest payable per on the penalty amounts when it passes its judgment (whenever that may be), that will be another half a decade (best case if this trend continues) of litigation.

Companies just don’t have any commercial reason to comply with competition law. In fact, contravention is commercially logical and the small penalties and/or counsel fee to be accepted as the cost of doing business.