Touchstone Partners

FIRM DETAILS:

Managing Partner: Karam Daulet-Singh

Number of Partners: 11

Languages: English

Firm Overview

Based in India, with offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore, Touchstone Partners brings to its matters the right mix of international experience and standards along with local knowledge and expertise. The firm is distinctly strong in its ability to manage transactions for its clients by implementing a hands-on partner driven approach. The firm is particular about the matters it gets involved in, with emphasis on being able to provide a high impact service. What sets the firm apart is its awareness of risk from a foreign investor’s perspective, and the ability to manage, mitigate and apportion those risks in the context of an M&A transaction. The firm brings to bear collective transaction management experience to command significant matters comprehensively. In November 2020, the firm retired the Platinum Partners brand, rebranding as Touchstone Partners while reflecting the old and the new.

Main Areas of Practice

Corporate M&A/Joint Ventures:

Cross-border M&A transactions represent the core practice of consistently advising multinational companies across the world, drawing on its extensive international experience of working with and across prestigious international law firms on high profile matters. The firm’s experience in advising its strategic clients spans the entire breadth of corporate M&A transactions — greenfield/ brownfield investments, complete buyouts/minority stake purchases, public/private M&A, mergers, joint ventures and exits — and across a variety of sectors, including the consumer goods, energy, infrastructure, pharmaceutical and technology industries.

Key Clients: BP, a leading sovereign wealth fund, the world’s leading media and communications group, General Dynamics, Solvay, Tencent, Wellington, Diageo, C-Flex, Huntsman, AESC Group, FountainVest, JSW Sarbloh.

Contacts: Karam Daulet-Singh, Anirudh Agarwala and Pranay Bagdi (Mumbai), Gaurav Desai, Uday Walia, Sameeksha Chowla and Yashita Sharma (New Delhi), Yashasvi Mohanram (Bangalore).

Competition / Antitrust:

Touchstone Partners has been involved in advising large global and Indian corporations on all aspects of competition law including merger control, cartel investigations and leniencies, anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominance, general competition advisory and compliance and investigation / audit work. The firm regularly appears before the Competition Commission of India, the Director General and various judicial forums including the appellate tribunal and the Supreme Court.

Key Clients: HPE, DSV, CPPIB, CDPQ, Tencent, Siemens, BASF, HDFC Bank, Credila, a leading sovereign wealth fund, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Lanxess, Saudi Aramco, Huntsman, Constantia Flexibles, Reliance Industries.

Contacts: Vinod Dhall and Gaurav Desai (New Delhi).

Private Equity, Alternative Investments/Venture Capital:

The firm advises the entire range of financial investors — sovereign wealth funds, private equity houses, venture capital funds, diversified conglomerates and investment management firms — on their financial investments in Indian businesses. The firm has experience with advising clients on both early and late-stage investments as well as structuring and negotiating exits as part of private sales and IPOs and can draw on its extensive experience of advising on IPOs, InvITs and capital markets for this purpose. While there are varying ‘market practices’ across financial investments in India, the firm’s understanding of the Indian market and the risk appetites of clients enables it to provide balanced inputs on the various commercial calls that typically need to be made on such deals. The firm is also well in tune with the investment possibilities opened by the developing ARC, InvITs and AIF regimes.

Key Clients: A leading GCC sovereign wealth fund, Tencent, Wellington Management, Investcorp, GEF Capital partners, FountainVest, Kotak Alternate Assets, Motilal Oswal Alternates, TPG NewQuest, Horizons Ventures, Baring Private Equity India.

Contact: Karam Daulet-Singh, Anirudh Agarwala and Pranay Bagdi (Mumbai), Gaurav Desai, Uday Walia and Sameeksha Chowla (New Delhi), Yashasvi Mohanram (Bangalore)

Data & Employment

The firm’s Data Privacy Practice, a key part of its corporate practice, closely tracks India’s evolving data privacy and security landscape and advises multinational clients on a wide range of data-related matters. It regularly conducts data-focused due diligence for corporate transactions and has guided innovative structures for monetizing data, such as using data lakes as financing collateral. As data increasingly intersects with antitrust concerns, the firm’s Data and Competition Teams work together to provide clients with comprehensive, multidimensional guidance.

Key Clients for Data: A Canadian provider of investment / asset management services, a leading German automotive manufacturer, a leading multinational fashion retailer, a leading American multinational chemicals manufacturer, an American workplace solutions service provider, a leading global hospitality company, leading social media and e-commerce platforms.

Data Contacts: Anuj Bhatia and Shruti Bhat (New Delhi).

The firm’s Employment Law Practice delivers pragmatic, business-focused solutions for multinational corporations, investors, and sponsors operating in India. The team specializes in employment aspects of M&A, employee benefits and stock options programs, workforce structuring (including hiring and redundancy strategies), and workplace investigations—helping clients navigate complex Indian employment laws efficiently and effectively.

Key Clients for Employment: Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bristol Myers Squibb, TRATON Group, Yokohoma Rubber Company.

Employment Contacts: Gaurav Desai and Yashita Sharma (New Delhi).

Disputes Resolution & Investigations

The firm delivers commercially focused legal solutions in an increasingly complex and evolving legal landscape, working closely with businesses to address their strategic legal needs.

The firm has rich and diverse experience across a wide range of disputes, including corporate and commercial litigation, white – collar crimes, investigations, domestic and international arbitration, insolvency and bankruptcy, and regulatory and enforcement matters.

With a special focus on white-collar crimes, the firm advises on complex financial frauds, anti-corruption issues, regulatory investigations, and corporate compliance. The firm assists clients in navigating regulatory challenges, conducting internal investigations, developing robust compliance strategies, and managing legal risks to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and corporate governance standards.

Key Clients: Leonardo SpA, Elevation Capital, Karvy Broking, Mensa Brands, Moglix, Fidelity Information Systems.

Contacts: Sandeep Das (New Delhi).