Asian Legal Business (ALB) magazine last month released a listing of Asia’s biggest law firms, including a round-up of the 25 largest Indian firms by total headcounts.

“American Express Ventures, the corporate venture investment arm of American Express Co, has led a $4m (Rs 26.6 crore) funding round in fintech startup IndiaLends, its second transaction in the country in as many months,” reported the Economic Times.

“Direct-to-home television operator Dish TV will merge with Videocon d2h, creating India’s largest media company by sales. Dish TV is the market leader in the DTH space while Videocon is the third largest by subscribers. Their combined sales in FY16 were Rs 5,920 crore, more than Zee Entertainment, which had sales of Rs 5,850 crore. Both Zee and Dish are part of Subhash Chandra’s Essel Group.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has promoted Arjun Ghose, Shruti Kanodia, Nitesh Jain and Manjari Tyagi to partner.

“A week after the Essar group signed a mega $12.9bn deal to sell Essar Oil and Vadinar Port to Rosneft of Russia, three banks — ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Standard Chartered Bank — have received over $2.5bn (around Rs 16,750 crore) from the Essar group towards repayment of loans to Essar Global,” reported the Indian Express.

The seven largest law firms in India have grown their headcounts by an average of around 20% in the last one-and-a-half years. Of those, the fastest-growing such as Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and Khaitan & Co, had expanded fee-earner headcounts by 45% and 35% respectively, while others such as AZB & partners’ partnership ballooned by 75%.

“State-owned NBCC’s share sale garnered 1.54 times subscription from institutional buyers, who put in bids totalling more than Rs 2,700 crore,” reported the Economic Times.

“Motilal Oswal Private Equity (MOPE) managed India Business Excellence Fund – II and India Business Excellence Fund – IIA have agreed to invest Rs 100 crore to buy a minority stake in Kolkata based Ganesh Grains. The Kolkata based unlisted firm is engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling of branded food staple,” reported the Economic Times.

Tata Sons’ former chairman Cyrus Mistry, who was unexpectedly fired from the organisation on Monday, has reportedly decided to approach the Bombay high court challenging his dismissal, although we understand that no case has been filed yet.

The settlement of arbitration between Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and former Chennai partner Dorothy Thomas have completed today, with the Bombay high court bench of Justice Kathawalla today recording the filing of consent terms.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas equity partner Kalpataru Tripathy has resigned from the firm, according to two authoritative sources.

According to the allegations in the Bombay high court section 9 petition against former Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) Chennai partner Dorothy Thomas, Thomas “in direct collusion with” Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas instructed associates to “extract confidential files” of CAM’s “in a systematic and pre-planned manner” from 26 September before she and her team had resigned from the firm.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) had alleged in the Bombay high court application for interim relief in arbitration proceedings that team members of departing Chennai partner Dorothy Thomas had taken boxes of CAM client files from the office.

Khaitan & Co topped the list of 13 domestic law firms’ M&A mandates by value of deals done with $18.7bn worth of transactions, followed by AZB & Partners which topped the list of deals by value, with 43 transactions worth $15.4bn.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) Chennai head and corporate partner Dorothy Thomas and her team are set to be joining Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), according to authoritative sources.

Dua Associates Chennai partner Aarthi Lakshmi Narayanan has joined Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas as a partner focusing on real estate.

“Piramal Fund Management Pvt. Ltd will invest Rs 2,320 crore in Lodha Developers Pvt. Ltd’s signature World Towers project in central Mumbai, it what is probably the single largest debt financing deal in Indian real estate. A part of this money will be used to repay debt and the remaining will be used to complete construction of the project.”

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas partner and tax head Krishan Malhotra has joined Dhruva Advisors as senior partner.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas IP partner Nitin Masilamani has left the firm and started up his own IP firm with Delhi managing partner Pallavi Shroff commenting “we wish him all the best”.

“State Bank of India (SBI) has kick-started the formal process of merging associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank, which would create a banking entity with total assets worth about Rs 29 lakh crore. The bank has appointed merchant bankers, valuation consultants and law firms to complete the process,” reported The Economic Times.