Law firms

Wadia Ghandy partner Anand Shah, with his team of four associates, will join AZB & Partners in the New Year as a senior associate on partnership track.

As year-end approaches and law firms send out a flood of press releases for the annual deals league tables, Legally India has wrapped up the most interesting ones in one tidy package.

Vichar Partners advised the world’s third-largest pizza chain Papa John’s in selling a majority stake in its Indian franchisee OM Pizza & Eats to Avan Projects, which was advised by Advani & Co.

Phoenix Legal has shut down its Nariman Point and Lower Parel Mumbai offices and taken a bigger Churchgate office in place of both in the city.

AZB & Partners advised private equity (PE) firm Warburg Pincus as Wadia Ghandy advised PE firm Faering Capital in investing Rs 300 crore ($49m) in ladies ethnic wear maker Biba Apparels which was advised by OP Khaitan & Co.

Vaish Associates advised Japanese drug company Rohto Pharmaceutical in buying 40 per cent stake in Deep Care Health which was advised by Mundkur Law Partners.

Vaish Gurgaon partner Hitender Mehta with principal associate Akshay Saxena and senior associate Pratyush Khurana acted for Rohto, which bought the stake for Rs 15.33 crore after a September 2013 Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval, according to the Press Information Bureau.

Mundkur managing partner Ramanand Mundkur partner acted for Deep which forms a joint venture with Rohto to manufacture and deal in prescription and over-the-counter ophthalmological drugs.

Former BMR Legal co-founding partner Sujit Ghosh has set up tax litigation firm Advaita Legal with ex-KPMG partner Sunil Moti Lala. Ghosh is based in Delhi, Lala is based in Mumbai and the firm has 30 lawyers across its offices in the two cities, reported legal website Bar & Bench.

According to Lala’s Linked-in profile, Advaita was started in September 2013.

Ghosh, who heads the start up’s indirect tax litigation practice, co-founded BMR Legal in 2004. He graduated from NLSIU Bangalore in 1995 and joined Arthur Andersen until 2002 and Ernst & Young until 2004. Lala heads corporate tax litigation at Advaita Legal and was at KPMG since 2010 and at PricewaterhouseCoopers since 2007.

The founding partners declined to comment when contacted by Bar & Bench, but apparently “it is understood that the firm works closely with KPMG”. BMR Legal is the legal services arm of BMR Consulting, while Big Four consultancy Ernst & Young has an alliance with law firm PDS Legal.

MV Kini partner Shrikant Kamath, who joined in 2012 to start its tax practice, left last week but is replaced by principal associate Prateush Sharma.

Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai corporate partners Ashwath Rau and Aysswarya Murthi acted for the Macquarie Group in the sale of its 50 per cent holding in Religare Macquarie Wealth Management to joint venture partner Religare Enterprises, which was advised by Vaish Associates corporate and banking partner Sandhya Iyer.

The JV exit was signed on 29 August and closed on 26 November 2013 [VCCircle]. Religare is a long-loyal client of Vaish, while Macquarie has used a number of Indian firms in the past, though Amarchand had set up the Religare JV for the Australian banking giant between 2007 and 2008.

Luthra & Luthra advised Indian private equity and real estate firm Everstone Capital in its joint venture with international fast food giant Burger King.

Amarchand Mangaldas has hired former IIFL Wealth Management director Mugdha Sahal as director in its private client practice in Mumbai.