The three founder partners of Accendo Law Partners Apar Gupta, Shashank Garg and Animesh Sinha have joined Advani & Co partner Monica Sharma in Delhi from 1 June 2011.

Advani & Co managing partner Hiroo Advani said: “We started getting such a big rush of work with three lawyers that were already there in Delhi and it was not possible to fly five to six lawyers every time from Mumbai to Delhi for work. Therefore, we decided to merge a Delhi practice with our firm.”

“We welcome Accendo on board and we look to have a best friend tie with a New York firm in the near future and two more tie ups with a French law firm and an Italian law firm thereafter as we don’t want to have a best friend alliance with just one firm.”

Accendo Law Partners was started by Gupta, Garg and Sinha in January 2010. Gupta and Sinha graduated from Amity Law School, Gupta went to School of Law and Legal Studies (SLLS) while Gupta and Garg went on to secure masters in law from foreign universities.

Gupta and Sinha previously worked at Karanjawala & Co, and Garg at Parag Tripathi Law Chambers before establishing Accendo.

Gupta explained that the negotiations for the merger stared two months ago and were finalised a week ago, effective 1 June 2010.

“As per the merger, I along with two other partners are joining Advani & Co in Delhi,” said Gupta. “Our previous expertise has been in the field of general corporate advisory as well as litigation and arbitration.”

Both Advani and Gupta added that competition law practice since this month’s merger control notification, introduced new business possibilities and they expected a large workload. This development especially, made Delhi “quite an important commercial destination”, noted Gupta.

Advani & Co, which has traditionally been a Bombay firm, is seeking to expand its presence in Delhi both in the corporate and litigation arenas, according to Gupta. It’s Delhi office, which is its third office after Mumbai and Pune, is located at Masjid Moth in Uday Park area of South Delhi.

The firm was founded Hiroo Advani in 1986 and has seven partners in Mumbai, four partners in Delhi and one partner in Pune.