Clifford Chance
Former Clifford Chance senior associate Rishi Gautam will join AZB & Partners in Mumbai as a corporate partner in January.
Luthra & Luthra and Clifford Chance advised CLSA India, Citigroup Global Markets India, Credit Suisse Securities (India), ICICI Securities, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company and IDFC Securities as joint book running lead managers on CESC’s $80m qualified institutional placement (QIP) of 7.6m shares, which was reported Mint and others. CESC was advised by Khaitan & Co.
Luthra Mumbai capital markets partner Manan Lahoty and Clifford Chance Singapore partner Rahul Guptan acted for the lead managers on the Rule 144A/Regulation S QIP of 7,621,118 equity shares at a price of Rs 644 per equity share.
Khaitan Mumbai executive director Sudheer Bassi and partner Nikhilesh Panchal acted for the power utility.
Some of the deals lawyers have been working on this month that we didn’t manage to cover separately.
Khaitan & Co and Clifford Chance Hong Kong advised HSBC's Hong Kong branch on its $30m term loan facility to the State Bank of India's Shanghai branch for general corporate purposes.
Khaitan banking partner Devidas Banerji (who joined the firm from CC in 2010) and Clifford Chance partner Matthew Truman acted for HSBC.
Magic circle firm Clifford Chance has promoted four women and three men to its partnership in London after Linklaters did the same earlier this month for the first time.
Women still make up a minority of partners in UK firms but some firms, such as Herbert Smith Freehills, have recently introduced a 30 per cent female partner target by 2019 in a bid to address the imbalance (63 per cent of fresh recruits to UK law firms are women). [RollOnFriday] [HSF quota story: The Lawyer]
Swatanter Kumar lashes back: Former SC judge and National Green Tribunal head Swatanter Kumar – who was accused of sexual harassment by an ex-intern from NUJS Kolkata according to Friday’s media reports – sent a legal notice to three media houses demanding an apology from them within 24 hours for publishing “incredulous and false” allegations against him [PTI]
Clifford Chance now CV-blind to nix Oxbridge bias: UK-magic circle firm Clifford Chance has introduced the “CV-blind” policy for graduate recruitment, giving no information of a candidate’s institutional affiliation to final interviewers at the firm, to reduce the Oxbridge bias in its intake. In its first year of operation the scheme saw 100 recruits from 41 different educational institutes – a 30 per cent rise in the number representation from last year [Independent]
Delhi judiciary transfer lists released: The transfer lists for the Delhi lower and higher judiciary have been released. All six joint registrars of the Delhi HC have now been replaced, and two new registrars have also been added with creation of two new courts for them. 49 judges from the lower judiciary have been promoted to the higher judiciary with the creation of 39 new courts in he higher judiciary for them [DK Mahant]
Bombay HC pendency busting judge: Bombay HC justice Gautam S Patel has, targeting pendency reduction, realigned his case schedule according to urgency of matters. He has also drawn a weekly working schedule for the court and categorised all pending cases [New Indian Express]
Himachal HC judges retire: Himachal Pradesh HC judtices Kuldip Singh and DD Sud will retire, respectively, on 17 January and 18 February [Hindustan Times]
London international firms beat US firms in recognition and volume stakes.
Khaitan & Co and Clifford Chance advised Chinese textile machinery manufacturing company Jiangsu Jinsheng in its CHF 500m or Rs 2,940 crore ($537m) buy of the textile components business of Swiss engineering company Oerlikon which was advised by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
Clifford Chance India group partner and Amarchand Mangaldas alumnus Sumesh Sawhney has resigned to join Jones Day in London.
London-headquartered firm Clifford Chance has entered into a Formal Law Alliance (FLA) in Singapore with newly-founded litigation boutique Cavenagh Law, under the Singapore government's new structure for international firms to operate in Singapore and offer local law advice.
The boutique firm was set up by three lawyers from Singaporean law firm Wong Partnership and will be able to share up to 33 per cent of its profits with its international alliance firm with the recently expanded FLA structure. [The Lawyer]
Clifford Chance was previously in a joint law venture (JLV) alliance with WongPartnership in Singapore for six years and in a best friendship with AZB & Partners in India until early 2011.
Gurgaon-based OSC Export Services – international law firm Clifford Chance’s five-year-old captive Indian LPO-cum-offshoring-centre – has doubled in size to 60 consultants in the last two years.
27 Clifford Chance offices across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and USA sent over 500 projects to the LPO in the 2011-12 financial year, according to the firm's annual report that publishes highlights of the firm's business year.
Besides assisting Clifford Chance offices on LPO-style legal work, around 16 per cent of the firm's non-secretarial business services staff is also now based in Gurgaon in the so-called Global Shared Services Centre (GSSC), which follows a captive business process outsourcing (BPO) model. [The Lawyer]
LI-Mint exclusive: 
Amarchand goes down under for $1.3bn GVK coal mine buy with Minters, Cliffords; Ex-AZBer’s Vishnu gets busy with Credit Suisse; Vaish hits the capital markets; JSA, KhaiCo, Amarchand disinvest in NYSE-Co; Amarchand restructures Alstom; and Naik gets a John Doe order.
Mirah Hospitality with Desai & Diwanji; Amarchand, Rajani, Khaitan on $350m Welspun PE; Luthra in EU pharma tax case; ELP AP tax victory for MAS-GMR; Khaitan-Clifford on StanChart loan; SRGR-KJSV project; JSA-Prolegal consultancy.
Khaitan-Trilegal inject $78m into Caparo Energy; JSA, Amarchand, S&R on LVMH luxury Genesis investment; Khaitan double teams with Clifford Chance on StanChart loan, AZB’s $1.4bn steel loan, plus sports, projects and Kolkata litigation.