AZB & Partners

Firm Overview:
AZB & Partners was formed in 2004 and has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore and Pune.

Main Areas of Practice:

Mergers & Acquisitions, Joint Ventures & General Corporate:
Mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and general corporate transactions are at the core of the firm’s practice. The firm advises on a broad spectrum of matters, ranging from general corporate advice, corporate governance, contract law matters and exchange control regulations to mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and unconventional strategic partnerships, takeovers and outbound investments.
Contacts: Zia Mody, Ajay Bahl, Ashwath Rau, Darshika Kothari, Gautam Saha, Anil Kasturi

Private Equity:
The firm represents the world’s largest private equity firms in establishing their India presence, and continues to work on a number of marquee deals ranging from minority investments, control deals and buy-outs to distressed asset and special situations investments, including complex cross-border, highly structured deals in regulated sectors.
Contacts: Zia Mody, Ajay Bahl, Anil Kasturi, Ashwath Rau, Chetan Nagendra, Darshika Kothari, Gautam Saha, Sai Krishna Bharathan, Srinath Dasari, Vaidhyanadhan Iyer, Vinati Kastia

Banking & Finance:
The firm advises its clients in relation to a gamut of financial products and services offered in India by domestic as well as multinational financial institutions, financial services, regulatory issues, new banking products and services, risk management and capital management.
Contacts: Bahram N Vakil, Ashwin Ramanathan, Gautam Saha, Prashanth Sabeshan, Shameek Chaudhuri, Yashwant Mathur

Insolvency & Bankruptcy:
The firm is at the forefront of the emerging insolvency and bankruptcy practice in India and regularly manages multiple complex refinancing, restructurings and insolvencies.
Contacts: Bahram N. Vakil, Ashwin Ramanathan, Nilang Desai, Piyush Mishra, Shameek Chaudhuri

Infrastructure & Project Finance:
The firm provides extensive advice on projects in the power, oil and natural gas, mining, roads, major and minor ports, shipping, airports, urban infrastructure, railways and telecommunications sectors and in setting up of Special Economic Zones and LNG projects.
Contacts: Bahram N. Vakil, Gautam Saha, Prashanth Sabeshan, Yashwant Mathur

Competition:
The firm advises a number of MNCs and domestic conglomerates across various industries on all matters pertaining to competition/antitrust enforcement in India including merger filings and clearances, cartels and other behavioural investigations by the CCI and litigation before the appellate tribunal and various other courts.
Contacts: Zia Mody, Rahul Rai, Samir Gandhi

Dispute Resolution:
The firm extensively engages in the resolution of civil, criminal (economic offences) commercial and constitutional law disputes through litigation in the Supreme Court of India, various High Courts and several other courts and tribunals.
Contacts: Zia Mody, Aditya Vikram Bhat, Rajendra Barot, Vijayendra Pratap Singh

Real Estate:
The firm regularly assists Real Estate Developers, Institutional Lenders and Private Equity Funds in all aspects of Real Estate Development and financing/investments in the Real Estate Sector.
Contacts: Hardeep Sachdeva, Nohid Nooreyezdan, Sai Krishna Bharathan.

Tax:
The firm has a specialised tax team of senior professionals with significant experience in tax litigation and issues related to corporate and transaction structuring, inbound and outbound investment, formulation of India entry strategies for international clients across several industry segments.
Contacts: Ajay Bahl, Deepak Chopra, Shreya Rao, Sunil Agarwal, Ravi Prakash, Suresh Varanasi.

Funds:
The firm has extensive experience in matters ranging from the setting up of, regulatory approvals to, launching new schemes/products and the sale of fund businesses.
Contacts: Ashwath Rau, Sai Krishna Bharathan, Pallabi Ghosal.

Capital Markets:
The firm’s capital markets practice provides legal advice in relation to large and complex equity and debt transactions including IPOs and QIP, representing issuers and underwriters in cross-border matters.
Contacts: Madhurima Mukherjee, Varoon Chandra, Lionel D’Almeida, Srinath Dasari

Key Transactions:
■ Merger of six banks with India’s largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI) ■■Bharti Airtel’s Acquisition of Indus Towers ■■ONGC’s Purchase of a majority stake in HPCL ■■OPIC’s Loan to Grameen Impact Investments ■■DP World and NIIF’s acquisition of Hindustan Infralog’s shares ■■Schneider and Temasek’s Acquisition of L&T’s Electrical and Automation business. ■■ATC’s Acquisition of Vodafone and Idea’s Passive Infrastructure Business ■■Competition law aspects of Walt Disney’s a) Acquisition of 21st Century Fox, b) Syngenta- Chinochem and c) Melrose GKN Deals ■■Tata Steel Limited’s Acquisition of Bhushan Steel Limited ■■Counsel to TCS in its Share Buyback ■■Merger of Capital First Limited with IDFC Bank Limited ■■Acquisition by multiple acquirers of Star Health Allied Insurance Company Limited