Ashwath Rau’s departure from Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) continues the churn of senior partners at India’s top-tier law firms. Rau has become a partner at AZB & Partners, focusing on corporate/M&A, financial services regulatory, investment funds and private equity. Rau’s exit from CAM was initially reported in April by Bar & Bench.
Rau, a 2016 Asialaw Leading Lawyer, led the CAM team that advised GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, when it invested, as part of a consortium, in a $1 billion fundraising by Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce firm, in 2014. Rau had to overcome the Indian government’s resistance to foreign investment in retail trading.
Despite Rau’s enthusiasm about working with talent he has clashed with across the table on many deals during his nearly 17-year career, that has not stopped CAM and AZB from hiring each other’s staff: CAM hired AZB senior partner Percival Billimoria to lead its Delhi office last month.
David Doré, Hong Kong