The demanding situations and opportunities of the past 12 months have pushed domestic the want for skillful lawyering and astute legal recommendation. Lawyers across u . S. Have 
vied for the paintings generated by India’s new insolvency and financial disaster regime, which has emboldened lenders to behave towards errant agencies and also sent M&A deal values to an all-time high of US$ 99.Nine billion, consistent with Mergermarket statistics.
Add to this legal work induced through the increasingly complicated legal and regulatory surroundings of India, and headline-grabbing disputes consisting of that between the promoters of Ranbaxy and Daiichi Sankyo, and the image that emerges is that of a marketplace in which specialist legal professionals and regulation companies are tons in demand.
Yet the downward strain on prices and brutal competition between law companies keeps. Companies seeking out prison recommendation in India are assured of great offerings at aggressive rates.
This is the scenario wherein we present the India Business Law Journal’s 2019 Indian Law Firm Awards. As in preceding years, we identify one Law company of the 12 months. In all other categories (Best general regulation companies, and 22 practice regions) we’ve got seven winners of identical standing. In the Best new companies class, we honor three firms.
India Business Law Journal’s Indian Law Firm Awards have been provided annually seeing that 2009. As in preceding years, the winners have been selected based totally on votes, references and qualitative facts obtained from in-house recommend and other legal specialists in India and around the world.
A vote casting shape became posted on our internet site among December 2018 and early January 2019, and heaps of in-house suggest, legal professionals at global law companies and other India-focused experts were invited to vote. At the identical time, Indian law corporations were asked to make submissions in aid of their candidacy for awards. These submissions, combined with studies through India Business Law Journal’s editorial group, played a supporting function within the judging procedure. All Indian regulation corporations had been robotically eligible for inclusion inside the awards system. As constantly, there were no access prices or another necessity for access.
LAW FIRM OF THE YEAR
WINNER
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co
The beyond 12 months has seen the cementing of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co’s (SAM) vicinity at the pinnacle of the prison market. This is an awesome feat for the firm, which emerged in May 2015 from the embers of Amarchand Mangaldas with 300 legal professionals and plans to construct a group of 400 to 450 attorneys. The firm currently has 550 legal professionals such as 111 companions, 26 of whom are equity companions.
Yet this isn’t sudden given the credentials of its founders, coping with companion Pallavi Shroff and executive chairman Shardul Shroff, who’re diagnosed as India’s top legal professionals for litigation and arbitration topics, and company topics, respectively. Their capability to nurture talent is likewise glaring and clients are impressed.
A case in point is Shahana Chatterji, a companion within the company’s coverage organization, whom Nitza Agrait Vilá, senior attorney, business prison lead for Microsoft India, describes as “notable”. Chatterji became promoted to the firm’s partnership in 2017 and has due to the fact that built a crew of young attorneys, numerous of whom are ladies.
“The firm has invested in the education of amazing young attorneys and it’s running difficult to maintain them … I also assume it’s splendid that SAM offers possibilities to female talent,” says Agrait Vilá, who adds that Chatterji is her depended on advisor on those topics and there may be capacity for her and the team to become “bigger and better”. “SAM is my cross-to law firm for enterprise regulatory troubles and policy subjects, which includes financial offerings, fitness, and pubic region,” says Agrait Vilá.
Lateral hires made over the past couple of years — together with that of Amit Khansaheb and 5 different partners and 32 attorneys from BMR Legal in 2017 — have also been giant.
As a result, SAM has been worried in numerous of India’s most complex transactions and dispute resolution instances inside the past 12 months. The f
firm’s briefs have protected advising Walmart on its US$ 16 billion acquisition of a controlling stake in Flipkart. It additionally advised a committee of lenders on what turned into the primary of India’s large insolvencies in which Tata Steel received a seventy-two. Sixty-five % controlling stake in Bhushan Steel and is presently representing Punjab National Bank because it attempts to recover from a US$three billion fraud concerning jeweler Nirav Modi, who fled us of a.
SAM’s capital markets crew, which prides itself on its “consciousness on first-rate execution over extent”, cautioned on six IPOs that raised greater than US$1 billion, and additionally within the submitting of 20 draft offer documents with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). The firm has also acted in and advised on high-stakes instances before the Competition Commission of India (CCI), consisting of performing for Uber, which became absolved of contravention of India’s antitrust regime. WhatsApp and Facebook, which face numerous felony issues as a result of the change in WhatsApp’s privateness policy, have also sought out attorneys on the company.
“I rank [SAM] very rather in phrases of their first-class of carrier and responsiveness,” says Vidyut Gulati, director of legal at Bharti Enterprises, that is presently the usage of the services of SAM’s banking and finance, capital markets, M&A and policy teams.
The firm reports it has currently evolved understanding in fintech, advising industry leaders within the world of generation-pushed economic products. Lateral hires in 2018 have blanketed Sugandha Asthana, a former companion at AZB & Partners, and Nivedita Tiwari and Harsh Kumar, each of whom crossed over from Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM).
SAM changed into the main Indian law company in Mergermarket M&A scores for 2018, having cautioned on 104 offers valued at US$ fifty-two. Eleven billion. The firm turned into also prison counsel in 11 of India Business Law Journal’s 2018 Deals of the Year and receives 9 practice vicinity awards in our Indian Law Firm Awards.
