Shearman & Sterling, DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Salans, Linklaters and Clifford Chance have advised on Tata Steel’s sale of Teesside Cast Products’s (TCP’s) assets to Thailand’s largest steel producer Sahaviriya Steel for $469m.

AZB & Partners, Talwar Thakore & Associates, Allen & Overy (A&O), Linklaters and Vinson & Elkins have advised on oil major British Petroleum’s (BP) record acquisition of 30 per cent of 23 oil and gas production sharing contracts (including the KG D6 block) operated by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) for a consideration of $7.2bn (Rs 32,500 crore).

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.

It appears there is just no winning in India for foreign law firms.

As though the opposition to them practising law here is not enough, the Indian Revenue Services (IRS) too are making their life hard.

Friday’s Mumbai Income Appellate Tax Tribunal (ITAT) ruling against Linklaters makes potentially all overseas professional services and law firms subject to income tax in India for the last six years or more if their staff visit India for 90 days in aggregate per year. The repercussions could be serious, according to Indian tax lawyers.

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.

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.

Dewey & LeBoeuf and Linklaters have respectively advised India’s largest mining company Vedanta Resources in its agreement to acquire zinc assets from mining giant Anglo American for $1.34bn in order to make it the world’s largest zinc producer and to create a sizeable presence in Europe and Africa.

Linklaters India head Sandeep Katwala has been appointed as Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) regional managing partner while continuing in his role as India head.

AZB & Partners has been instructed on Bharti Airtel’s $10.7bn bid for the African business of Kuwaiti telecoms group Zain, with Herbert Smith and Linklaters scoring the international advisory mandates for the Indian company’s third attempt to enter the continent.

Two partners from Linklaters have resigned to join its Indian best friend firm Talwar Thakore & Associates (TTA) as equity partners.

The firm has also promoted two of its associates to non-equity partner level and put in place a lockstep system.

Linklaters best friend Talwar Thakore & Associates has leased a new office in the Fort area with 70 per cent more floor space, bucking the recent trend of Mumbai firms moving North.

Legally India research has revealed Amarchand Mangaldas as the top IPO dealmaker of this financial year so far, while Khaitan & Co and Luthra & Luthra are in close contest for the runner-up spot. International and domestic firms are competing in a tightly bunched mid-field of the ranking.

Amarchand Mangaldas has acted on 70 per cent of qualified institutional placements (QIPs) in the first half of this financial year, with international firms, AZB & Partners, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Luthra & Luthra, S & R Associates and Crawford Bayley mopping up the rest.

Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co. and Linklaters Singapore are working to help Reliance Infratel on its initial public offering (IPO), which looks to raise around US$ 1 billion (Rs. 5000 crore) from the market.

India’s largest mortgage lender Housing Development and Finance Corporation (HDFC) has issued India’s first ever dual warrants and bonds instrument, which was structured by AZB & Partners, Amarchand Mangaldas and Linklaters Singapore to raise Rs 4000 crore ($822m) for the company.

Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto has outsourced part of its legal work to 12 qualified Delhi lawyers, which has already saved the company $1m (Rs 5 crore) in little more than a month.

Lawyers are adopting a wait-and-see approach to India’s newly-established Competition Commission, which was given its executive powers today.

Question marks remain over how the new body will exercise its powers and whether it will be able to do so free from government interference.

Brussels competition partner Jonas Koponen of international firm Linklaters said: “It will be interesting to see what position and approach the Indian Commission will take. One can only hope that it is purely competition-based interests they will look after.”