Exclusive: Bhasin & Co has hired retired Slaughter and May partner, former International Bar Association (IBA) president and ex English-county cricketer Francis Neate as a part-time senior cricket & BD consultant and to shore up the firm’s cricket team next season.

Exclusive: Khaitan & Co has internally promoted four lawyers to equity partner level, while also adding three associate partners in the now finalised career rung.

Khaitan & Co, Platinum Partners and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have advised on a majority stake acquisition of Mumbai-based agrochemicals company Devidayal Sales by Japanese Arysta LifeScience.

Exclusive: Platinum Partners has promoted Mumbai senior associate Yashasvi Mohanram to its partnership, who joined the firm last year from White & Case Singapore.

Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have advised on US-based International Paper’s 53 per cent acquisition of Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills (APPM) for $247m in cash along with $62m as seller’s non-compete fee.

Exclusive: DSK Legal is parting ways with Delhi partners Gopika Pant and Piyoosh Gupta over strategic differences on future growth, with one more lateral partner set to join the firm in its new larger Delhi office space only several weeks after hiring a team 15 lawyers.

Bhasin & Co managing partner and Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) president Lalit Bhasin has vowed to safeguard “freedom of expression” and “promote arts” as the newly-appointed chairman of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal.

AZB & Partners’ Mumbai and Delhi offices advised on both sides of the financial services joint venture between India’s largest private sector enterprise Reliance Industries and US investment group D E Shaw with Debevoise & Plimpton and Covington & Burling.

AZB & Partners, J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Sullivan & Cromwell have advised on Goldman Sachs’s complete acquisition of Indian asset management company Benchmark Asset for a reported Rs 130 crore to expand its foothold in the six trillion rupee Indian fund management industry.

Khaitan & Co advised longstanding clients Leighton International in divesting its its stake in Oriental Pathways to target infrastructure development activities with joint venture partner Welspun, which in December of last year bought a 35 per cent stake of Leighton’s Indian unit for Rs 470 crore.

Exclusive: Former Amarchand Mangaldas partner and current Paul Hastings Hong Kong lawyer Kirti Ram Hariharan will join Barings Private Equity Asia as deputy general counsel (GC) responsible for South Asia.

Linklaters best-friend firm Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA) has promoted banking and finance managing associate Sonali Mahapatra to its partnership to take its ranks of partners back up to six.

AZB & Partners, Desai & Diwanji, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Khaitan & Co and Japanese law firm Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu have advised on Hero Investments’ acquisition of Honda Motors’s 26 per cent stake in joint venture Hero Honda Motors for $851 million.

Khaitan & Co and Chitale Law Associates have advised on a $19m private equity infusion in Mumbai-based aroma chemicals manufacturer Privi Organics by Standard Chartered.

Exclusive: Vidhii Partners has continued on its expansion drive and is set to start up a Kolkata office in May with the hire of Paras Kuhad Associates senior associate Deepti Mohan as a partner.

Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners have advised on Tata-owned Indian Hotels’ minority stake sale in subsidiary Roots Corporation to Singapore-based Omega TC Holdings for Rs 150 crore.

DSK Legal will merge with 15-lawyer Bangalore litigation and real estate firm AKS Law Associates on 1 April, hoping also to ramp up the corporate offering to South India.

Exclusive: DSK Legal and Juris Corp through senior counsel Janak Dwarkadas have filed a winding-up petition in the Bombay High Court against pharma company Wockhardt, which is represented by Majmudar & Co and senior counsel Rohit Kapadia.

AZB & Partners, Kochhar & Co, Trilegal, Zeus Law Associates, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have advised on public listed Vishal Retail’s slump sale to private equity (PE) firm TPG and the Shriram Group for Rs 70 crore.

AZB & Partners and Norton Rose’s African merger partner have advised India’s Essar Group on its majority stake take-over of Zimbabwe’s state-owned steel unit Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO) for $750m.