Arthe Law, which came into being with the merger of Abhishek Malhotra-led boutique telecom, media and technology advisory law firm TMT Law Practice and New Delhi-based DPSA Legal six months ago, has decided to combine its operations with Mumbai-headquartered Bharucha & Partners.
The merged entity will have 12 partners and about 80 lawyers across Mumbai and Delhi. The merger will be effective from 1 November.
The 12 partners include MP Bharucha, the founder and managing partner of Bharucha & Partners, besides Alka Bharucha, DP Singh, Abhishek Malhotra, Justin Bharucha, Vishnu Dutt, Vandana Pai, Arjun Anand, Deepak Biswas, Kaushik Moitra, Ajai Achuthan and Sonam Gupta.
“In a short time, Arthe has built a very successful practice, banking on the years spent by DP Singh and Malhotra in their respective practices,†MP Bharucha said in a statement.
Malhotra said that the talks on the merger were on ever since Arthe was formed and that the finer details were being worked upon.
The new firm will deal in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, litigation, banking and finance, regulatory, white collar crime, competition laws, media, space law, intellectual property rights and infrastructure practices.
As part of the integration, Bharucha & Partners’ Delhi team will move to Arthe’s office, while the Mumbai office of Bharucha will be the new address for Arthe’s lawyers. Arthe will continue to have its office at Andheri in Mumbai to cater to its media clients.
The merged entity will also maintain the working relationship between Bharucha and partner Vivek Vashi, who is setting up his own practice.
“Abhishek and DP Singh are known faces in the litigation circles in Delhi and together with the MP Bharucha brand, they will become a litigation powerhouse,†said a senior executive at a legal headhunting firm.
With talks of liberalisation of the legal sector by permitting foreign law firms to operate in India gaining momentum, more and more law firms are considering the consolidation route to strengthen their positions both in terms of practice areas and geographic locations.
Last month, Mumbai-based IC Legal Advocates & Solicitors and Bangalore-headquartered Universal Legal Attorneys at Law had merged its practices to create a 15-partner and 100-lawyer unit IC Universal Legal Advocates & Solicitors.
Likewise, in January, two other mid-sized law firms, Link Legal IndiaLaw Services and DH Law Associates, had merged their practices to create a national-level firm, having 35 partners and 155 lawyers.
On a smaller scale, New Delhi-based boutique law firm Gravitas Legal had merged with Mumbai-based peer Kay Legal & Associates LLP to create a firm with four partners and 21 lawyers.
