Ashurst

AZB & Partners advised the Dabur India promoters, the Burman Family, which picked up around Rs 50 crore ($9m) stake in DMI Finance, which was advised by start-up Amicus Advocates & Solicitors.

The firms would give preference in referring work to each other as “best friends” but would remain non-exclusive in line with Indian restrictions, Pant and Ashurst India head Richard Gubbins told Legally India.

Exclusive: SN Gupta & Co has rebranded its transactional practice to SNG & Partners, shifted into new Delhi corporate offices and has hired former Ashurst India office heads Ashok Mubayi and Preet Malik as senior advisers to build up the firm’s nuclear practice.

Ashurst has decided to shut its Delhi liaison office, which in all honesty will not be a shock to anyone who's read the Lawyers Collective judgment.

To find out what this means for Ashurst's India practice (if anything) read our interview with the firm's India head Richard Gubbins. We have asked him lots of questions but we have not been able to confirm what will happen to Ashurst's shiny India ball.

"As far as Ashurst is concerned, I'm very happy with where we are today," says the firm's India group head Richard Gubbins. For a lawyer who is just about to shut down an office he has helped build and defend for 15 years, he does not sound upset at all. Is he just putting a brave face on things or is the firm secretly glad to be rid of what had turned into an expensive millstone?

Ashurst has decided to close its Delhi liaison office following the outcome of the Lawyers Collective case. However, the office closure was already on the cards two months before the judgment, according to the firm.

Almost everything that could happen, did happen this week in Indian law.

And then hell froze over.

Legally India was the first to report one of the biggest items of foreign law firm news in 15 years: the Bombay High Court finally gave its judgment in the infamous case of Lawyers Collective v Ashurst, Chadbourne & Parke and White & Case.

"It's a very important milestone in the evolving debate," says Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai managing partner Cyril Shroff about the Bombay High Court judgment. "Its ramifications will be analysed over the coming weeks by all concerned."

But so far the analysis has yielded little in the way of certainty and the sparse judgment has become a reflection of individuals' hopes and desires, as well as an ill-fitting receptacle for the status quo.

International firms Ashurst, Chadbourne & Parke and White & Case have lost the long-running case against the Lawyers' Collective, with the Bombay High Court having decided today that the practice of all law by foreign firms in India is illegal.

Law minister Veerappa Moily has reiterated his stance on liberalisation and vowed to set up four super-charged "law schools of excellence" throughout India.

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).