AZB, DSK and Trilegal have done well in Asia Pacific private equity deal rankings despite heavily depressed values and volumes this year.

AZB & Partners is relocating one of its Mumbai partners to Bangalore to ease the office’s integration process after the merger with Anup Shah’s local practice last month.

Indian law firms are famously enamoured with the letters of the alphabet. But is it rubbing off on the Indian tax office?

The Income Tax Department raided the Mumbai offices of ALMT Legal and AZB & Partners late last week looking for information related to clients and offshore transactions. The raids were not related to either of the law firms’ own tax positions.

For an Indian firm, going under the wing of an international firm is not necessarily as appealing as some might suppose and could even be downright dangerous.

AZB & Partners has merged with Anup Shah’s Bangalore law firm, doubling AZB’s size in the city, giving it two new bases in Chennai and Hyderabad and winning a new office managing partner.

Kanga & Co Mumbai partner Dhaval Vussonji is leading the team for the original bidder Bharati Shipyard, which already owns a 19.5 per cent stake in Great Offshore.

Despite meagre pickings, Desai & Diwanji, Khaitan & Co, AZB & Partners and Amarchand Mangaldas have topped an M&A league table, together advising on 30 Indian deals worth a total of $9.4bn in the last six months.

Platinum Partners has joined the team of legal advisers on the MTN – Bharti Airtel merger talks alongside four other firms on what could be India’s largest cross-border deal to date with a value of around $23bn (Rs 110,000 crore).

J Sagar Associates (JSA) has doubled its size in Bangalore by merging with M&C Partners, which was started up by two partners and their team from AZB & Partners one year ago.

Former Solicitor General Goolam Vahanvati was appointed Attorney-General of India on Monday (8 June), giving AZB & Partners the second close family connection in that post.

AZB & Partners yesterday (9 June) moved to a new office in Noida from New Delhi, in a bid to provide additional space for existing and future staff.

The firm had been looking for a new office for two years and last year it found its new property in Noida’s commercial district, which is around 15km away from its former office in the heart of New Delhi.

Clifford Chance is seconding the head partner of its India practice group to its best friend AZB & Partners.

Clifford Chance project finance partner Chris Wyman (pictured) will relocate to AZB’s Mumbai office this month and will spend at least several months there to improve the integration between the firms.

Wyman said that he would stay “as long as it takes” and added: “It is all about maximising the opportunities – if you just say nice words and do nothing else, you will soon cease to be useful.”

AZB & Partners has bagged the biggest ever Indian cross-border merger mandate, advising Bharti Airtel on its revived $23bn bid to take over South African telecoms major MTN.

London international Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer will be advising long-standing client MTN but the company’s Indian counsel has not yet been chosen.

AZB Delhi partners Ajay Bahl (pictured) and Gautam Saha are understood to be leading the legal team for Bharti, having won the instruction off the back of previous work done by the firm for the company.

National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore may expand internationally, as it plans to grow and modernise under the guidance of a new advisory board.

The advisory board will include managing partners from Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, AZB & Partners and Luthra & Luthra, as well as one of the legendary co-founders of Infosys and a host of other prominent industry figures.

NLSIU vice-chancellor Venkata Rao (pictured) said that while international expansion will be on the agenda, decisions would only be made once the new board is fully constituted and has had its first meeting in July or August of this year.

Khaitan & Co has continued its aggressive lateral hiring strategy, taking partner Prabjot Singh Bhullar from AZB & Partners.

Bhullar (pictured) was based in AZB’s Mumbai office but will relocate to Delhi, where he will significantly bolster Khaitan’s infrastructure and projects capacity.

Khaitan partner Rabindra Jhunjhunwala said that the firm was keen to expand in infrastructure and tax, in order to improve cross selling opportunities to the firm’s domestic clients.