AZB & Partners has topped the mergermarket league table for the first three quarters of 2010 in a record year of M&A activity so far. The firm is followed in the rankings by Desai & Diwanji, Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co and newcomer Tatva Legal according to the total number of mandates.

Amarchand Mangaldas Bangalore and Indus Law Advocates advised on private equity funds Sandstone Capital and Sequoia Capital’s Rs 200 crore minority stake investment in India’s largest domestic handset maker Micromax.

Nalsar Hyderabad has placed 35 students with law firms out of a 2011 graduating batch of 81, as the in-house recruitment round is yet to begin.

Amarchand Mangaldas equity corporate partner Himanshu Narayan has resigned the firm to join Dua Associates in Delhi.

The Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) appellate tribunal does not have the power to second-guess the CCI’s decisions to investigate anti-competitive behaviour, the Supreme Court held today in an “emphatic victory” for the CCI and Jindal Steel and their lawyers Amarchand Mangaldas, Economic Laws Practice (ELP) and counsel Harish Salve and Gopal Subramanium.

Amarchand Mangaldas has hired dual-qualified chartered accountant and lawyer DD Nageswar Rao as a partner in Delhi. Rao’s was formerly the India country head of tax at Siemens, with his over 20-year career also including similar roles at the Coca Cola India and Colgate.

Amarchand Mangaldas and Dorsey & Whitney have won the government’s mandate on the $1.8bn follow-on public offer (FPO) by Power Grid Corporation of India.

Latham & Watkins with S&R Associates and Shearman & Sterling with Amarchand Mangaldas’ Delhi and Mumbai office presided over the New York initial public offering (IPO) of India’s largest online travel agency MakeMyTrip, raising $70m and seeing record first-day trades.

Amarchand Mangaldas’ Delhi office and Dorsey & Whitney have won the bid on the Hindustan Copper divestment while Khaitan & Co bagged the underwriter’s mandate.

Amarchand also won the role for the underwriters on the mammoth Coal India stake sale with Ashurst as international counsel while Luthra had won the tender to advise the company.

Khaitan & Co emerged as winner at NLIU Bhopal, winning the signatures of five final-year students on job offers as Trilegal, Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan, ICICI Bank and Pangea3 also turned up to recruit from the law school on the first day of its campus recruitment last week and Amarchand Mangaldas inviting 10 students for interview.

Amarchand, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have all ramped up their basic starter pay above Rs 10 lakhs, with offered packages including bonuses now running up to Rs 15 lakh at the top end.

Luthra & Luthra jointly topped Legally India’s quarterly IPO league tables for the first time alongside Amarchand Mangaldas over the first quarter of the 2010-11 financial year with five mandates each while AZB & Partners slotted into third place.

NUJS Kolkata saw almost a third of its batch snapped up by law firms as Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra and Trilegal together made 30 offers two weeks ago.

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.

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.

Amarchand & Mangaldas, India’s biggest law firm, has all the trappings of a family-run enterprise including sibling rivalry. The Shroff brothers must quickly set their house in order, argues Forbes India magazine’s Shloka Nath.

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.

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.

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.

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.