Singapore
Wadia Ghandy closed its Singapore office after three years of operations on the ground of the island nation, due to a lack of commercial viability.
Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) deputy registrar Vivekananda Neelakantan joins top Singapore firm Allen & Gledhill.
SNG & Partners has opened an office in Singapore, permanently relocating associate partner Rahul Sud to the island state, in order to be closer to the firm's banking clients and focus on in- and out-bound investment.
Fox Mandal Noida projects partner Rajesh Sehgal has quit the firm to move in-house to Singapore, reported Bar & Bench, reducing the number of non-family partners at the firm to three - Swati Sinha, Jyoti Virmani and Veronica Mohan - after departures of corporate partners Dev Ashish Mishra and Sudish Sharma last year.
Sehgal declined to comment to Bar & Bench but confirmed his departure. In respect of information from the website's sources that the firm still owed former and current staff money, as first reported in Legally India since 2009, Delhi-area managing partner Som Mandal said: "We don’t owe any money to anyone who has left recently." [Bar & Bench].
Aditi Mathur has been promoted to the partnership of Singaporean firm Shook Lin & Bok.
GNLU gets Microsoft IPR chair: GNLU Gandhinagar will soon become the sixth national law university with an intellectual property rights (IPR) chair after NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad, NLU Jodhpur, NLIU Bhopal and NUJS Kolkata. While each of its five predecessors have IPR chairs set up by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), GNLU’s IPR chair will be funded by Microsoft India. At GNLU’s IPR chair, in addition to a chair professor there will be two assistant professors. The MHRD has 18 IPR chairs in various universities and IITs across India [TOI]
Singapore law firm regulators to merge: Singapore’s dual regulation – different regulators for domestic and foreign law firms – could merge into a single body following the recommendations of a committee headed by Singapore’s chief justice [Channel New Asia]
US bench changed over Facebook request: A judge in the US was taken off a marital dispute he was judging, after the litigating wife’s lawyer alleged that the judge had saddled his client with “most of the marital debt” and had given the husband a “disproportionately excessive alimony award” after his client did not accept the judge’s Facebook friend request [WSJ Blogs]
Aligarh law professor jailed over sex harassment: The suspended chairman of department of law Aligarh Muslim University, Professor M Shabbir, was sent to jail after his bail plea was rejected in a case of alleged sexual harassment by a female law student [TOI]
Singh & Associates will open in Singapore by late August, then New York, London, Hong Kong.
Linklaters India partner set to join Magic Circle rival.
Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy Singapore of counsel Sanjeet Malik, specialising in the India practice group, corporate and disputes, has left the firm to pursue a business opportunity in India.
In a departure email he wrote:
I'm writing to let you know that after more than two enjoyable years at Milbank, I have resigned to return to India to pursue some exciting opportunities in financing of renewable power projects that serve rural off-grid communities in North India.
He has a 2001 law degree from Cornell Law School but is not qualified to practise in India. Malik had joined Milbank in April 2011 from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. He was unavailable for comment by email at the time of going to press.
Magic circle law firm Allen & Overy promotes 2001 NLSIU Bangalore graduate and banking counsel Gautam Narasimhan.
Ten foreign law firms will now be allowed to practice local law in Singapore, after the country’s law ministry approved four new Qualified Foreign Law Practice (QFLP) licences out of 23 total applicants.
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.
Private equity boutique Lexygen’s former Singapore partner Yang Yen Thaw, who left in December 2011, has joined Chinese firm Dacheng Wong Alliance LLP as co-head of its India practice from Singapore.
Mint exclusive: Mumbai solicitors’ firm Wadia Ghandy has opened up in Singapore, with three of its partners having secured licences to practise Indian law in the island nation.
Private equity boutique Lexygen has taken on Yang Yen-Thaw, the Bangalore-based founder of Yang Lawyers, as a partner to relocate to its one-year-old Singapore office.
Veerappa Moily is visiting Singapore from 8 and 9 September to meet with his local counterpart K Shanmugam and discuss both countries’ development of the legal sector, arbitration and mutual co-operation, according to Channel NewsAsia.
The entry of foreign law firms into Singapore has been a long and rocky road, littered with failed experiments and moderate successes. So what can India learn from Singapore's incremental legal market liberalisation, Legally India asked Indiana University law professor and Asia law firm expert Jayanth Krishnan.
Jones Day has promoted India capital markets of counsel Manoj Bhargava to partner in its Singapore office.
Dua Associates is opening an office in Singapore this month with the former Asia Pacific general counsel of Procter & Gamble. The firm has also hired two lateral equity partners for its Delhi office.