AZB & Partners
Four senior counsel and Naik in SLP against immovable property rental service tax; AZB Bangalore Muthoot debentures; Universal-Wadia Ghandy Pizza Hut deal; Infrastructure India windfarm buy with 3 foreign firms and KhaiCo, MMB; ANM for Godrej in cyber squatter; Rs 200 crore P&A Kemrock buy; Amarchand Essar delisting.
AZB & Partners Delhi and P&A Associates advised on the sale of AppLabs to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) for as much as Rs 1,200 crore ($253m).
Exclusive: Vishnu Jerome, who resigned from AZB & Partners in June, has started up the law firm Alliance Legal with fellow NLSIU Bangalore graduates Priyanka Roy and Ravi Kumar from J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Talwar Thakore Associates (TTA) respectively.
Exclusive: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has cleared the $454m takeover of UTV by Disney today after 25 calendar days, with J Sagar Associates (JSA), AZB & Partners and Dhall Law Chambers advising.
European publishing giant enters India with Associated Law Advisers, Universal Legal for Chennai e-publisher, Khaitan gets close to HDFC’s new investment banking head, and more…
J Sagar Associates (JSA) and US firm Covington & Burling advised Disney, which is seeking to buy-out its Indian partners in the UTV joint venture for $454m, with AZB & Partners advising UTV’s promoters.
Exclusive: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has dealt with the first M&A referred to it, clearing within 18 days the proposed takeover by Reliance Industrial Infrastructure of Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company, advised by AZB & Partners and Talwar Thakore Associates respectively.
Exclusive: Desai & Diwanji Gurgaon advised Franklin Templeton on its purchase of 20 per cent of Mumbai designer clothes retailer Kimaya Fashions, which was advised by AZB & Partners Mumbai office.
Round up of the latest and most legal from around the web.
- Supreme Court: Don’t open our judgments on flimsy grounds [The Hindu]
- Deadline for Greater Noida ‘hi tech court’ with video conferencing and servers was March 2010, now slated to be done in two months [Times of India]
- “A Challenge, An Opportunity!” AZB’s Abhijit Joshi talks of motivation and his philosophy behind law firm management following his appointment as AZB CEO. [Moneycontrol.com]
- P&H student files writ v BCI against 20 year age-limit for applying to 5-year LLB courses [Indian Express]
- Supreme Court hikes 1996 chemical company pollution damages from Rs 37 crore to Rs 200 crore for failing to pay [Economic Times]
- New independent environmental regulator for granting industrial environmental clearances [Business Standard]
AZB & Partners has promoted Mumbai capital markets senior associate Varoon Chandra to partner.
Exclusive: Clients have been most impressed with associates at S&R Associates and Vaish Associates, according to a survey from consultancy RSG India, as Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners topped a ranking of Indian best law firms.
In the last year Indian law firms also grew lawyer headcounts by an average of 20 per cent while partner numbers only increased by 5 per cent.
Desai & Diwanji has advised on the most M&A mandates in the first half of the 2011 calendar year, with AZB & Partners having advised on far fewer deals than last year but still topping the mergermarket league table by value of transactions closely followed by Talwar Thakore Associates.
Managing a law firm tends to become harder rather than easier with size. Acknowledging this, in what is still a largely symbolic step albeit with potential future significance, AZB Mumbai has created a new top-level management function outside of the name partners.
Exclusive: AZB & Partners has appointed senior partner Abhijit Joshi into the newly created chief executive officer (CEO) role, overseeing strategy of the Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune offices while continuing in his client-facing duties.
Exclusive: AZB & Partners Mumbai partner Vishnu Jerome is intending to set up a new law firm after his AZB resignation takes effect from the end of this month.
Khaitan & Co represented ATM outsourcing company AGS Transact Technologies in its successful bid to raise Rs 145 crore ($32m) in private equity funds from investment firm TPG growth, which drafted in AZB Partners and Milbank Tweed.
J Sagar Associates (JSA), AZB & Partners and Japanese law firm Anderson Mori & Tomotsune have advised on Indian stationery maker Camlin’s majority stake buy-out by Japanese counterpart Kokuyo for Rs 186 crore.
The Delhi and Kolkata offices of Amarchand Mangaldas and Delhi’s AZB & Partners advised on Warburg Pincus’ $140m investment in Dainik Bhaskar-owned Diligent Power.