Jerome Merchant + Partners has hired Palash Gupta, India desk and international arbitration head of Collyer Law based in Manila, Philippines, and Singapore, to in turn head its international arbitration offering.

In a statement, he said that he was looking forward to “grow its dispute resolution practice across Asia”. Jerome Merchant’s arbitration practice had until now been part of the firm’s larger disputes practice.

He specialises in international commercial arbitration and commercial litigation, and has been involved in disputes in the US, India and Singapore for clients, and in arbitrations in Singapore, India and the US, as well as courts in India and Boston.

Gupta is US and India qualified (with a 2008 Boston College Law School JD and an NLSIU Bangalore 2001 LLB).

He will be dividing his time between Singapore and India.

He had left fellow NLSIU-alum Azmul Haque’s Singapore-based start-up law firm Collyer in November of last year after having joined in 2016, and had previously also been general counsel of Elevar Equity. Before that he was a partner at Mumbai firm Haresh Jagtiani & Associates, and had worked in Delhi with S&R Associates, in Boston with Dwyer & Collora, and at Hindustan Levers, as it then was (see below).

Jerome Merchant’s managing partner Vishnu Jerome commented: “Palash brings first class experience of complex commercial arbitration to the firm’s expertise in the commercial disputes space. His knowledge and vast experience will bring real value to our clients.”

Jerome added that disputes currently made up 15-20% of the firm’s revenues, but they were “aiming to grow it further”.