Law firms

Khaitan & Co has advised UAE-headquartered Mashreqbank PSC on its contract with business process outsourcing (BPO) provider WNS Global’s India-based operations for outbound calling in banking services for clients in English and Arabic for an undisclosed amount.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Wadia Ghandy have advised on the $5m funding of online auto auction portal MotorExchange Solutions (MXC) by venture capitalist firms Epiphany Overseas and Canaan Partners.

Less than three-year-old firm RDA Legal has re-branded to PXV Law Partners and started an office in Mumbai by relocating its newly elected managing partner Rohit Das, while hiring three lateral senior associates from Amarchand, AZB and P&A as lockstep partners.

Exclusive: AZB & Partners has topped Legally India’s 2010-2011 quarterly initial public offering (IPO) league table taking it to second place in the financial year IPO rankings to date behind Amarchand Mangaldas and overtaking Luthra & Luthra, which did not file any IPOs in the last quarter.

Majmudar & Co has hired Bharucha & Partners equity partner Rukshad Davar as a corporate, M&A and tax partner in Mumbai.

Exclusive: Link Legal has absorbed top-ranked mid-market capital markets boutique Zenith India Lawyers, with erstwhile Zenith managing partner Raj Rani Bhalla relocating from Gurgaon to the young Mumbai office to increase growth.

Jones Day has promoted India-focused banking and finance partner Sushma Jobanputra as partner-in-charge of its Singapore office to succeed David Longstaff.

Exclusive: AZB & Partners and J Sagar Associates (JSA) have advised India’s sixth largest IT firm Patni Computer Systems that was bought by Apax Partners-backed iGate for $1.22bn, which drafted in Khaitan & Co and Kirkland & Ellis as legal advisers.

Lexygen and Linklaters advised a Carlyle Group-led consortium of the losing bidders, where Amarchand Mangaldas is understood to have provided the advice to the bid’s merchant banks.

Khaitan & Co Mumbai has made two partner-level hires from Thakker & Thakker, which was closed at the end of last year by its founding partner in order to follow philanthropic pursuits full-time.

Private equity boutique Lexygen has taken on Yang Yen-Thaw, the Bangalore-based founder of Yang Lawyers, as a partner to relocate to its one-year-old Singapore office.

Mumbai-based firm Wakhariya & Wakhariya and Bachubhai Munim & Co have advised in Novartis Pharma's 49 per cent $22.3m acquisition of Aventis Pharma’s equity in anti-rabies vaccine manufacturer Chiron Behring Vaccines.

Exclusive: Delhi-based legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm Lex Forska Solutions LLP is becoming an LPO-cum-law firm also catering to domestic clients after entering into an exclusive referral alliance with Silicon Valley immigration boutique Shah Peerally Law Group PC.

Exclusive: Bharucha & Partners has opened its first office outside Mumbai, entering New Delhi with partner Kumkum Sen from Raijnder Narain & Co, nearly a year after the firm opened in a second Mumbai location.

AZB & Partners Bangalore office has promoted senior associate Anind Thomas to its partnership.

One-and-a-half years after merging with Anup S Shah law firm in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, AZB & Partners and Anup Shah and his firm have decided to part ways as “best friends”.

Exclusive: Khaitan & Co has closed the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) of roughly Rs 2,500 crore ($550m) of outstanding debts of former Satyam-owned Maytas Infrastructure following the company’s agreement with the lender banks in June this year.