Bharti Airtel director legal Sameer Chugh has been promoted to group general counsel at the Bharti Group, as first reported by Legal Era.

Mukesh Bhavnani has returned to be group general counsel (GC) at Bharti Enterprises after a year of stints as Vedanta’s GC and some time out.

R Sunder Rajan, the former chief of legal at GMR, has joined Bharti Airtel as its group general counsel (GC).

Allen & Overy (A&O) and Indian best friend firm Trilegal have scooped the mandated lead arranger mandate on the closing Bharti Airtel – Zain $9bn merger, alongside AZB & Partners, Herbert Smith and Linklaters.

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).

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.