Law firms

Amarchand and US firm Shearman & Sterling jointly advised the Californian venture capital fund Norwest Venture Partners in buying Rs250 crore ($51m) in the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) under new foreign investment rules.

Mulla & Mulla & Craigie Blunt & Caroe has led Anil Ambani Group company Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) in its multi-million dollar High Court victory against Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries (RIL).

Wadia Ghandy & Co will open up a new office in Chennai within a month, marking the firm's recovery since the Mumbai terror attacks last November when one of its partners was killed.

Luthra & Luthra partners have agreed to completely overhaul their management and partnership structure, which will see up to six current salaried partners enter the newly opened equity on a lockstep system.

J Sagar and Associates (JSA) and Luthra & Luthra have completed the Rs 1,750 crore ($368m) takeover of mining company Dempo Group by London-listed Vedanta Resources subsidiary Sesa Goa.

Amarchand, Ashurst and Luthra & Luthra have restarted their work on the exhumed Oil India initial public offering (IPO), which the government hopes will fill its coffers by up to Rs 2,400 crore ($500m).

A Scottish lawyer has taken his government to Bangalore to convince Indian outsourcing companies to set up call centres in Scotland.

He hopes that a large draw will be the avoidance of protectionist measures such as those recently proposed by US President Barrack Obama.

Trilegal has promoted four partners, raised its associate base salaries by 20 to 30 per cent and paid out unprecedented bonuses this year.

Clifford Chance is seconding the head partner of its India practice group to its best friend AZB & Partners.

Clifford Chance project finance partner Chris Wyman (pictured) will relocate to AZB's Mumbai office this month and will spend at least several months there to improve the integration between the firms.

Wyman said that he would stay "as long as it takes" and added: "It is all about maximising the opportunities – if you just say nice words and do nothing else, you will soon cease to be useful."

ALMT Legal has formed a best friends relationship with UK international firm Clyde & Co.

In a joint statement the firms said that they would share information, harmonise training and set in place an extensive secondment programme.

ALMT partner S R Arun (pictured) said: "We anticipate that we will have access to the markets where Clyde is and that not many of the large magic circle firms have got access to."

Khaitan & Co has made up a former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) chartered accountant-cum-lawyer to partner.

Sanjay Sanghvi (pictured) only qualified as a lawyer after joining Khaitan in January 2008 from PwC. He is the third new member to the law firm's partnership in as many months.

He said that working in a law firm was very satisfying: "In accountancy firms you typically do compliance work and you don't go deeper into the law and interpretation.

Amarchand's Kolkata head has quit the firm to pursue interests outside the law.

Krishnava Dutt was the only partner based in Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co's Kolkata office of more than 20 lawyers.

The firm will relocate Delhi corporate partner Kalpataru Tripathy to fill his space and lead the office.

Amarchand co-managing partner Cyril Shroff (pictured) told Legally India that the terms of Dutt's departure were amicable.

Trilegal spin-off Phoenix Legal has added two associates in Delhi, vowing to significantly expand its practice there and in Mumbai with lateral hires.

The firm is hoping to hire a lateral partner for its Mumbai office and to double it in size to 10 lawyers by the end of the year.

FoxMandal Little has hired a partner to head its New Delhi intellectual property (IP) practice of three lawyers.

Vinay Dwarkadas joined from Khaitan & Co's Mumbai office where he was a senior associate.

Dwarkadas (pictured) said that he hoped to greatly expand the existing IP practice at FoxMandal: "I have to be its backbone and want to take it forward for years to come. I plan to be here for a long time."

Private equity boutique firm Lexygen has opened a new office in Singapore, on its third anniversary of founding.

Two lawyers from Lexygen's Bangalore headquarters have temporarily relocated to Singapore and are hoping to recruit a local lawyer to head the office within the next six months.

Lexygen founding partner Vijay Sambamurthi said: "We aim for our Singapore office and the team that will be built, to act as the Asia hub for our firm."

Vaish Associates Mumbai office is hammering out a health insurance JV between its close client Religare Enterprises and global insurance company Swiss Re.

The Vaish team is being led by partner Bomi Daruwala, assisted by associates Amitjivan Joshi and Arti Narsana.

Swiss Re is understood to be represented by its global in-house team but is due to pick its domestic Indian legal representation soon.