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Breaking: Argus and Udwadia & Udeshi weld 5-office nat’l firm in cross-generational merger

Two firms become one
Two firms become one
Exclusive: Two-and-a-half-year old Argus Partners has merged with Mumbai-headquartered Udwadia & Udeshi to create 12-partner, 60-lawyer national firm, which will be managed by Argus co-founder Krishnava Dutt.

It is understood that the agreement to combine both firms on 1 April 2012 was signed in Mumbai today after long-running negotiations. The merged firm Udwadia, Udeshi and Argus Partners will have offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai.

Udwadia & Udeshi is managed by Darius Udwadia and Dilip Udeshi and was founded in 1997 after they retired from Crawford Bayley & Co’s partnership. The firm specialises in project finance, M&A, corporate, litigation and arbitration work.

Krishnava Dutt
Krishnava Dutt

Both senior partners had previously also partnered with Berjis Desai, who is now the Mumbai-based senior partner at J Sagar Associates, under the banner Udwadia Udeshi & Berjis.

Udwadia & Udeshi had around seven partners and 30 lawyers last year, according to RSG Consulting.

Argus Partners was founded in September 2009 by former Amarchand Mangaldas Kolkata partner and office head Krishnava Dutt, together with former Amarchand Kolkata principal associate Ramya Hariharan.

In October 2010 Argus opened up in Mumbai, hired HSA Advocates Mumbai partner Utsa Shome in June 2011 and started a Kolkata litigation practice with a small team from Amarchand.

Udwadia, Udeshi and Dutt were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

Photo by US Navy

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