Trilegal Mumbai counsel Shamin Shah has joined South African media and global investment giant Naspers as M&A legal counsel in India.

Shah is the first hire in Naspers’ M&A legal team in Asia and the fourth hire in its global M&A legal team.

He is understood to be in charge of legal of Naspers’ Indian M&A deals and is also handling South East Asian M&A, and is reporting to the global head of legal M&A, Wayne Benn, who is based in Singapore.

Trilegal might not be altogether unhappy with Shah’s move: according to our deals database, Naspers is a close client of Trilegal’s, having drafted in the firm on some of its biggest deals, including the Flipkart sale to Walmart and Byju’s $540m fundraise from Naspers in the 2018-19 financial year.

However, Naspers - which has been hugely active in the Indian private equity space - has also worked with J Sagar Associates (JSA), Nishith Desai Associates and Veyrah Law.

Shah is the third counsel we had reported to leave Trilegal’s ranks in the past two weeks, following Tanya Mehta who joined Brookfield Asset Management as VP legal, and Padmaja Kaul who joined IndusLaw as Delhi litigation and IBC partner.

When asked for a comment on the three leavers, Trilegal co-founding partner Karan Singh said: “Our best wishes to Padmaja, Tanya and Shamin as they begin the next chapter in their respective careers. We thank them for their contributions to the firm.”