Platinum Partners Mumbai office has hired a senior lawyer from White & Case in Singapore to bulk up its second layer of corporate fee-earners in the young office.

Kochhar & Co has entered into two best-friend alliances with law firms in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the firm said in a press release.

Two offices of AZB & Partners acted on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall for private equity investor Matrix India and gold loan company Muthoot Finance in a 4 per cent investment totalling Rs 157 crore with Luthra & Luthra advising second investor Baring Private Equity Partners India.

Rodney Ryder has merged his practice with young start-up law firm ANM Global, spinning off his Scriboard company into a separate entity for legal education.

Delhi-based law firm R&A Legal, project finance firms India Law Services and MV Kini & Co have advised the borrower, bank consortium and NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) respectively in the construction of India’s longest elevated expressway in Chennai.

Amarchand Mangaldas’ Mumbai region offices have made 2011 job offers for 41 students, most recently picking up 12 each from GNLU Gandhinagar and Nalsar Hyderabad, nine from NUJS Kolkata and eight from NLSIU Bangalore. Last year the firm had recruited the equivalent number of freshers from only three campuses more than a month later.

Clifford Chance expects to have an office in India by late 2012 said the firm’s senior partner Stuart Popham, vowing to keep pushing the liberalisation agenda in India despite a lack of “overnight” results during his visit as part of the UK prime minister’s delegation.

Trilegal has hired its first full-time partner in Hyderabad with DS Associates’ co-founder Pavan Kumar joining to take advantage of the recovering economy after the firm scaled down in the city during the global downturn.

Khaitan & Co’s recent White & Case lateral hire has advised Reliance Industries and Infotel Broadband Services on a $500m loan to finance its broadband wireless access (BWA) auction win. Linklaters and Juris Corp advised the lead lender RBS.

Khaitan & Co has advised Rabobank’s private equity unit Rabo Equity Advisors in its investment of Rs 50 crores in Agra-based integrated packaging company called Vacmet India Limited for a 23.92 per cent post-issue equity stake.

AZB & Partners advised Japanese steel giant JFE that bought 14.9 per cent for $1.02bn in India’s third largest steel maker JSW, which was advised by Amarchand Mangaldas.

Suman Khaitan’s Khaitan & Partners has moved to a bigger office in Delhi to combine its litigation and corporate law practices which until now were servicing clients from two different locations, aiming to further expand after the consolidation.

Clifford Chance senior partner Stuart Popham is the law firm representative on British prime minister David Cameron’s India delegation this week, representing the UK legal and financial professional services community as head of a new trade body.

Start-up firm Phoenix Legal has secured the instruction for hotel operators Accor and Interglobe, which established a hotel investment fund with Pacifica Partners, which were advised by Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai and Morrison Foerster in Tokyo.

Luthra & Luthra’s capital markets practice has increased its leverage structure with the hire of its alumni Indraneel Basu Majumdar as a managing associate on “partnership track” from Clifford Chance.

ICICI Bank’s in-house department, which hired 24 campus graduates this year, has increased the salary package of new joiners to Rs 9.05 lakhs per year. This figure includes all benefits that employees receive but lawyers can choose to be paid the amount in full on a retainer basis after six months with the company.

Start-up firm Axon Partners LLP has advised Shiv-Vani Oil & Gas Exploration Services on its $75m convertible bond issue with Norton Rose’s Singapore office getting into the capital markets game by advising the deal’s London underwriters Jefferies International.

Luthra & Luthra was the most active project finance legal advisers both by value and volume in the first half of 2010, followed by India Law Services, SJ Law Advocates & Solicitors, Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners and SN Gupta & Co, according to data compiled for Legally India by data provider Dealogic.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) advised US spice-manufacturer McCormick and Company in its acquisition of a 26 per cent stake in Keralan curry ingredient maker Eastern Condiments for $35m (Rs 162 crores), which was advised by Bangalore firm MD&T Partners with Economic Laws Practice (ELP) Mumbai representing the main selling shareholder.

The Indian government will attempt to move the Chennai writ petition against 31 foreign firms to the Supreme Court in order to take a “broader perspective” and make a “final decision” on the entry of foreign law firms said law minister Veerappa Moily, according to newspaper reports.