Exclusive: US-headquartered venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) has created an in-house legal department in India with the hire of Amarchand Mangaldas principal associate Karan Pahwa.

**Exclusive: Former Remfry & Sagar patents head and Lakshmi Kumaran & Sridharan (LKS) partner Dr Sanjay Kumar has left to start his own intellectual property (IP) law firm Perfexio Legal fulfilling entrepreneurial ambitions.

Exclusive: Project finance specialist India Law Services (ILS) has opened office its fourth office in Bangalore with former State Bank of India (SBI) lawyer as its head in a bid to capitalise on market opportunities in southern India.

Kenneth Clarke, the UK’s Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor who will visit India in the coming weeks, said at a speech today that it was in the interests of Indian business to open up the legal sector to foreign law firms or suffer because of “restricted domestic legal provision”.

Naik Naik & Co has represented Bollywood actor Imran Khan and a student in their Bombay High Court writ petition challenging Maharashtra’s increase of the minimum drinking age to 25 years.

Amarchand Mangaldas advised Tommy Hilfiger with Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz in its 50 per cent stake in joint venture partner Arvind Murjani Brands, which was advised by DM Harish & Co and Pryor Cashman.

Best of deals, including three exclusive venture capital/private equity deals featuring DSK, Sand Hill, Induslaw, Khaitan and Nishith Desai, as well as a banking, M&A and projects wrap.

Wakhariya & Wakhariya has hired former UBS India legal head Neeta Sanghavi as partner to head the financial institutions, investment banking and private equity practices.

Exclusive: Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) has hired former Goldman Sachs India legal head Pratibha Jain to start up in Delhi, as the firm opened its second Mumbai office in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) last week and invested Rs 1 crore ($219,000) in advanced IT infrastructure.

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.

MV Kini managing partner Ravi Kini has started up a legal process outsourcing (LPO) firm in Mumbai in a joint venture with seasoned LPO NewGalexy to focus exclusively on foreign infrastructure projects work, while the law firm will transfer a number of its lawyers to staff the new entity.

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.

Naik Naik & Co has succeeded in challenging the three states’ orders banning the film Aarakshan before the Supreme Court, following an earlier favourable order before the Bombay High Court . Naik Naik & Co partner Madhu Gadodia summarised the case before the Supreme Court: Prakash Jha Prod...

Exclusive: Chennai Law Associates, which was set up 18 months ago by former Surana & Surana litigator ML Joseph and broken even last month, has moved into larger office and opened an arbitration centre as an additional revenue source.

Exclusive: Trilegal has internally promoted the first two salaried partners into its equity partner lockstep since the Phoenix Legal breakaway, with Mumbai corporate partners Nishant Parikh and Amit Tambe starting on the first rung of the firm’s 13 year lockstep.

Exclusive: Phoenix Legal has opened a second Mumbai office in Nariman Point relocating its recently hired litigation partner and bulked up with Hariani & Co real estate and corporate partner Siddharth Hariani to expand to three partners in Mumbai.

Exclusive: S&R Associates is advising Vodafone Group on its disposal of 5.5 per cent of the shares in Vodafone Essar for $640m to Piramal Healthcare, which is relying on Amarchand Mangaldas as lead adviser with Linklaters and Slaughter and May, as well as Crawford Bayley and Stephenson Harwood.

Naik Naik & Co represented the producers of the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Aarakshan (reservation) and successfully persuaded the Bombay High Court not to stay the release of the film, which has been attracting controversy for its purported anti-reservation message.

The latest round-up of Indian associate movers and shakers.

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.