PDS Legal

Kirloskar Oil Engines Limited, manufacturers of diesel engines, gensets and agricultural pumpsets, have entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake of 76% in La-Gajjar Machineries Pvt. Ltd., the maker of Varuna and Raindrop brands of electric pumps, as reported by Livemint.

PDS Legal lost 10 lawyers and four support staff in its direct tax practice after they followed former PDS partner Deepak Chopra to AZB & Partners, effective 1 December.

PDS Legal partner Deepak Chopra will join AZB & Partners in Delhi as a partner and the head of its tax litigation practice, according to a press release from the firm.

PDS Legal advised Tata Capital Healthcare Fund on selling its shares in Sandor Nephro Services, which was advised by Fox Mandal, to Fresenius Medical Care which was advised by Samvad Partners.

PDS Legal won relief from entry tax, for e-commerce major Flipkart’s logistics arm Instakart, in the Patna high court.

PDS Legal and Desai & Diwanji together acted for the Wadia group-owned airline GoAir in its order to buy another 72 Airbus 320 NEO aircrafts for around $7.7bn.

Samvad and Head Partnership advised IDG Ventures India Fund, Pandara Trust Scheme and Kalaari Capital Partners on their $2m investment, alongside investor 500 Startups, in digital media platform POPxo which was advised by PDS Legal and Gordon Dadds. 500 was advised by Penningtons Manches.

Samvad partner Neela Badami, senior associate Varsha Aithala and associate Anisha Shroff, and Head partner Stuart Mullins acted for IDGVI, Pandara and Kalaari.

PDS principal associate Anirudh Mukherjee, senior associates Deepti Thakkar and Karuna Thapa and associates Samyuktha Damojipurapu and Ankita Jain, and Gordon partner Deborah Evans acted for POPxo.

Penningtons partner James Klein acted for 500 Startups.

POPxo, which was launched in 2014 to blog about fashion, beauty, work, relationships and other personal issues of interest to women readership in the age group of 18-34, currently claims to be attracting nine million monthly pageviews and three million unique visitors, reported Your Story.

Having launched in March 2014 and relying on native advertising and sponsored content for its revenues, it raised Rs 3 crore from Chennai Angels in November that year, added Your Story.

Can your accountant also assist you on drafting a joint venture agreement? Or is this work best left to a lawyer to check for compliance with various rules and legislation? And what happens when one company drops a nasty legal notice on the former joint venture partner? Is when things get contentious and litigious the line where only a lawyer can step in and take care of business?

The Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) will complain to the Bar Council of Delhi in the coming week against PDS Legal, Advaita Legal and other Indian law firms that are best friends with accountancy firms, as a follow-up to its recent complaints in the council against the Big Four consultancies E&Y, KPMG, PwC and Deloitte for their alleged unauthorized practice of law.

The global chartered accountancy (CA) firms dwarf even global law firms in revenue and have increasingly been getting into legal services, with PwC’s legal arm now having a headcount of lawyers equivalent to the world’s tenth-largest firm already generating $500m per year from law, reports the Economist:

Those most at risk from the attack of the bean-counters are the profusion of mid-tier legal firms in liberalised markets. Since their profit margins are already low, they cannot afford even a modest loss of market share. Unfortunately for them, much of their business is high-volume, repetitive tasks—just the sort of work that the Big Four excel at standardising and automating.

In India, CA firms have been making inroads into legal too, with Ernst & Young (E&Y) having arguably been the most visible via its close alliance with aggressively growing start-up PDS Legal. Even domestic CA firms such as Mohinder Puri & Co have made forays into legal best friendships, having hired former Amarchand Mangaldas tax head Aseem Chawla in 2012.

The Society of Indian Law Firms (Silf) and the Bar Council of India (BCI) have also been in talks about the growing threat of CA firms, other than just foreign law firms, with the Madras high court having indicated that CA firms might be in violation of the law by practising it.

PDS Legal, the law firm closely allied to Big Four consultancy Ernst & Young (E&Y), is set to boost its M&A practice with the arrival of Desai & Diwanji Mumbai partners Monika Deshmukh and Vihang Virkar.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) won for Bharti Airtel, PDS Legal for Ernst & Young (E&Y), Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS) for Ultratech Concrete, and Global Legal Associates for ITC Welcome Group in the Delhi high court on Tuesday against the Service Tax Department.

PDS & Associates has acted for steel maker Mukand Limited in its Rs 160 crore rights issue, which was filed with the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) last week. Board approval was granted in June.

PDS Mumbai partner Sajid Mohamed advised Mukand, assisted by principal Abhishek Misra who had joined the firm two months ago from SA Partners – a start-up he set up in 2010. PDS & Associates is the corporate advisory arm of PDS Legal, which specialises in tax advisory. Both firms work closely with Ernst & Young (E&Y).

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) litigation head and equity partner Tarun Gulati has resigned with around 11 associates in Delhi.