A Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has found that Linklaters should pay income tax in India on all India-related profits after applying a retrospective Finance Bill 2010 amendment to section 9(1) of the Income Tax Act, going against the latest decision in the Clifford Chance tax battle that is currently in the Indian Supreme Court.

According to data provider mergermarket’s latest league table, AZB & Partners was the busiest M&A law firm with 38 deals to its credit in the first half of 2010, followed by Amarchand Mangaldas and Desai & Diwanji in second and third places respectively, with a total of 14 deals each.

Suman Khaitan’s partnership firm Khaitan & Partners has replaced its ex-Kolkata office head Niloy Pyne who joined Amarchand Mangaldas last month, by hiring independent practitioner and former Amarchand senior associate Niladri Bhattacharjee as a partner to manage Kolkata.

AZB & Partners advised close client Tata Power in raising $300m by selling up to 15 per cent in two of its Indonesian coal-assets-owning special purpose vehicles (SPVs) Bhira Investments and Bhivpuri Investments to private equity house Olympus Capital Holdings Asia, which Desai & Diwanji and US firms Milbank Tweed and Purrington Moody Weil advised.

AZB & Partners, S&R Associates and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have advised Dutch bank Rabobank in its divestment of 11 per cent equity in Yes Bank for around Rs 980 crore ($210m) to comply with the RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) regulation as a prerequisite to attain a full commercial banking license in India.

Kochhar & Co has started a niche corporate fraud, ethics and integrity practice by hiring expatriate solicitor Abhinav Mohindru as partner and consultant from a UK regional firm.

As the Madras High Court decided on Wednesday (7 July) to serve 31 foreign law firms with the petition that seeks to prevent them from operating in India, respondent firms and local corporate lawyers have expressed confidence that firms’ India businesses would remain largely unaffected.

Amarchand Mangaldas has acted for private equity fund Warburg Pincus in its investment of Rs 392 crore ($85m) in India’s largest diagnostics laboratory chain Metropolis Health Care, which was advised by Desai & Diwanji.

Clifford Chance has again hired a legal “consultant” from its Gurgaon-based captive legal process outsourcing (LPO) centre OSC Export Services as a lawyer into the main firm.

Economic Laws Practice (ELP) and Naik Paranjpe & Co have respectively represented Bollywood film studios PVR Pictures and Reliance Big Entertainment in filing a writ petition to challenge the imposition of service tax on copyright transfers, which was introduced by the Finance Act 2010 on 1 July 2010.

The 31 international law firms and one legal process outsourcing (LPO) company will now be served with notices to defend the Chennai writ petition that aims to prevent foreign firms practising any law in India.

Today, as the petitioner pressed for an injunction against the foreign firms, the government respondents’ counsels asked for time to file responses while the law ministry and Bar Council of India would “frame guidelines” on the issue.

Bharucha & Partners with Norton Rose and Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA) with best friend Linklaters are advising HSBC on its takeover of the Indian retail and commercial banking business of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) for a premium of Rs 444 crore ($95m) over the net asset value of the business.

Amarchand Mangaldas acted on more than half of the total number of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs) in Legally India’s QIP League Table of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co were the second-busiest followed by J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Crawford Bayley and S&R Associates amongst domestic firms.

International firm Jones Day bagged the maximum QIPs out of foreign law firms acting for the book running lead managers while Linklaters, Dorsey & Whitney and Clifford Chance also won mandates on a significant numbers of fundraisings.

Induslaw has hired Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) partner, Bangalore head and fund investment co-head Kartik Ganapathy as an equity partner, while NDA partner Vaibhav Parikh returned from the firm’s Silicon Valley office.

S&R Associates is set to start up its greenfield Mumbai operations with Delhi-based co-founding partner Sandip Bhagat relocating full-time to the Mumbai to service existing clients and to build a full-service practice.

AZB & Partners has completed two deals for its long-standing client International Finance Corporation (IFC), which bought a $25m share in power projects company Bhilwara Energy Limited and $5m in Applied Solar Technologies.

AZB & Partners, Luthra & Luthra and Jones Day have advised power generation company Ind-Barath Power Infra on its initial public offering (IPO) of equity shares through which the company hopes to raise Rs 1153 crores.

Link Legal has advised a GMR-Malaysia Airports consortium on winning the contract to build and expand the Male Maldives airport for around $300m (Rs 1,390 crore).

IPL (Indian Premier League) broadcasters Sony Entertainment Television yesterday filed a Rs 147 crore recovery suit in the Bombay High Court through Luthra & Luthra against the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and its media rights licensee World Sports Group (WSG).

Juris Corp has promoted finance partner designate Veena Sivaramakrishnan to full partnership and has lured sole practitioner Anil Mehar Singh Jarial to join the firm as a dispute resolution and real estate partner in Mumbai.