SAM bagged the mandate for Facebook and AZB for Reliance on India’s largest ever foreign-direct investment in a tech company, which values Reliance’s Jio Platform subsidiary at Rs 4.62 lakh crore (or nearly $66bn), with Mark Zuckerberg’s US technology giant buying itself a 9.9% stake in Jio Platforms Limited.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) acted for Facebook on Indian law issues, led by Mumbai-based national corporate practice head and partner Raghubir Menon, with partners Natashaa Shroff and Sakshi Mehra on the transactional side with principal associate Deepa Rekha and senior associate Srishti Maheshwari. Also involved from SAM were: due diligence team: senior associates Dipayan Bhattacherjee, Leoni Mahanta, Niti Chatterjee, and associates Tanya Choudhary, Garima Tyagi, Aishwarya Narayanan, Pranav Awasthi, Surabhi Bhandari, Raktima Roy and Protiti Roy and associates Preeti Kapany, Rohan Singh, Sidharth Chauhan, Rooha Khurshid and Sneha Bhawnani, and associates Shrungar Bhuva, Shalaka Mehta and Mitisha Gaur; competition: partners Naval Chopra and Yaman Verma, with senior associate Ritwik Bhattacharya; Advice on Indian anti-bribery laws and internal controls: partner Anuj Berry, senior associate Sourabh Rath; litigation: partners Tejas Karia and Pavit Singh Katoch, Shashank Mishra, senior associate, and associates Karishma Sundara and Akshi Rastogi; IT and data privacy laws: partner Shahana Chatterji, associate Raktima Roy, associate Protiti Roy; securities: partner Yogesh Chande; taxation: partners Abhay Sharma, Rajat Bose and Gouri Puri, principal associate Ankita Sinha, and associates Priyanka Jain and Nimish Malpani; fintech: partners Shilpa Mankar Ahluwalia and Shubhangi Garg.

Update 23 April 13:17: SAM team member names added.

Update 23 April 23:16: Updated anti-bribery laws section description.

AZB & Partners acted for Reliance Industries, led by Mumbai-based partner Ashwath Rau, also including partner Nilanjana Singh and associates Sidhant Chandalia, Amitabh Robin Singh, Kanika Mishra and Vyjayanthi Raghu. Competition law advice was provided by partner Bharat Budholia and senior associate Gaurav Bansal.

US firm Hogan Lovells advised Facebook on US law, including Silicon Valley-based partner Jane Ross, with partner Nate Gallon and senior associate Brittany Raway.

Reliance Industries relied on US firm Davis Polk & Wardwell led by London-based partner Jeffrey O‘Brien and including California-based partner Alan Denenberg for non-Indian legal issues.

Apart from its in-house team, Facebook is also understood to have briefed several foreign law firms, with Gibson Dunn lawyers Patrick Stokes, Michael Farhang, Laura Sturges, Oliver Welch.

On international competition advice, Facebook instructed White & Case.

International tax advice was provided to Facebook by US firm Fenwick & West.

PwC was tax adviser to Facebook.

Morgan Stanley acted as the financial advisors for RIL and Jio Platforms.

Reliance Industries Limited, Jio Platforms Limited and Facebook, Inc. today announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of ₹ 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms. — Mint

So it’s confirmed: Facebook has bought 9.9% stake in Jio Platforms Limited, the parent company of Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, for $5.7 billion (Rs 43,574 crore). Reliance Jio Infocomm claims over 388 million Internet subscribers in India, and is the country’s largest Internet Service Provider, accounting for more than half of its over 635 million Internet connections. — Medianama

Relationships

Earlier this year, J Sagar Associates (JSA) had advised Facebook on a $110m Series E investment into Unacademy, according to our deals database.

Reliance, meanwhile, had used a raft of law firms in 2019-20, ranging from Khaitan & Co, to K Law and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (and Slaughter and May for international work on its buy of Hamleys).

AZB had also been a favourite of Reliance's in the 2018-19 financial year, with six out of 10 reported mandates having gone to the firm.