Lakshmikumaran forays into London with Jones Day partner Sumesh Sawhney

Eyeing London
Eyeing London
Former Jones Day India partner Sumesh Sawhney joined Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS), as partner, to open up the firm’s office in London.

Sawhney, who obtained his LLB in 1992 from Panjab University, was a partner at Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi and at Clifford Chance’ India Group in London, before Jones Day. He joined Jones Day in December 2012, as reported by Legally India at the time.

Sawhney advises blue-chip Indian corporate houses and foreign investors on M&A, joint ventures, schemes of amalgamation and private equity investments, according to his Jones Day profile.

He commented that the firm will only be practicing Indian law at its London office which will “be both execution office as well as BD office”. Sawhney said he will be based in London but travel extensively between London and India. The firm is yet to take an office space in London, he said.

“The idea behind the London office is to bring Indian law capabilities closer to our UK / European and US clients. Lawyers across all our offices would work as one close-knit team to service the demands of our clients and our primary driver will be to build capabilities and structures to achieve this goal”, Sawhney told Bar&Bench which reported the news first.

LKS partner Badri Narayanan confirmed the news but was not available for further comment at the time of going to press.

Fox Mandal, K Law, Clasis, and ALMT are the other Indian firms to have already set up offices in London while erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas had in 2014 been reported by Legally India, to be considering opening a London office by 2016.

Picture by Pixabay

Comments

Hyperlink 3 Feb 2016, 15:39
+0 -1
The K Law hyperlink directs to the Clasis story.
Guest 3 Feb 2016, 18:04
+2 -0
What's the deal with him staying in London and traveling in India? Should it not be the other way around? Looks like correct reporting by LI. Me missing a point here?
Giest 3 Feb 2016, 22:31
+2 -1
You are not only missing the point but even the big picture. Wake up and figure out for yourself what's happening
Guest 4 Feb 2016, 06:26
+1 -1
In all seriousness, what is the point here and what is this big picture that you are talking about?
SAM Mumbai 4 Feb 2016, 07:57
+11 -10
Boss! What is Sumesh doing? Has he gone mad? Why is he under selling him so much? It appears that he has no buyer left in UK for his services and nobody wants to invest in him.

LKS is like 4 tier firm as far as corporate law is concerned. It will be even be challenging for him to scale to the level of firms like Trilegal, Kochar or DSK.
Khachchar 4 Feb 2016, 09:38
+3 -2
Seems LKS is competing with the only international firm of India i.e. Fox
LNS 6 Feb 2016, 05:26
+3 -3
Atleast we enjoy our work and don't crib that we shall quit.. Sitting in a split firm and that too in an alien city don't put up useless comments.. Come join the light side! May the Force be with you my child!
Rajni fan 8 Feb 2016, 13:05
+0 -0
If he is scales upto the level of Trilegal, Kocchar or DSK in London, then trust me, he would be doing a fantastic job. But problem is, his current competition in London is Fox Mandal, K Law, Clasis, and ALMT. So I am not too sure what is going to be his benchmark.
Sammie 4 Feb 2016, 19:20
+5 -2
LKS London sounds a lot like CAM Delhi.