J Sagar Associates

The stellar practice at J Sagar Associates has been focused on gaining market share in infrastructure financing, particularly for infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs), and restructuring and insolvency, due to regulatory changes, such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s approval of InvITs. An oil and gas client remarks that the team won its business because of its “reputation for knowledge, experience, competence and result”. “Technical ability and deal management”, “attention to detail” and “pro-activeness” are traits that clients lavish on practice head Aashit Shah. Teaming with Uttara Kolhatkar, joint managing partner and market-leading lawyer Dina Wadia has acted for the State Bank of India on updating its $10 billion medium-term note programme. Tirthankar Dutta has arrived from a top-tier rival.

J Sagar Associates remains a highly recommended practice for its ability to grow revenues in emergent sectors and service sovereigns. “Team members have deep understanding on all the subject matters, clarity over things [and a] dedicated team,” remarks a client. Joint managing partner Dina Wadia and Arka Mookherjee helped IRB Infrastructure Developers establish the IRB InvIT Fund, the first listed infrastructure investment trust in India. The team also advised on the fund’s Rs50.4 billion IPO. Instructed by the Export-Import Bank of India. Wadia and Uttara Kolhatkar acted in a $1 billion issue under its $10 billion MTN programme.

J Sagar Associates is on any client’s shortlist when considering legal advice in a mega deal. “They perform at a high professional level,” remarks a client, “and [are] responsive and sensitive to our needs.” Rupinder Malik, praised by a client for her “knowledgeable, responsiveness and ability to understand our needs”, has acted for APG, a Dutch pension fund, in its $450 million joint venture with Xander Group, one of India’s largest real-estate transactions during the past 12 months. Based in Chennai, Aarthi Sivanandh and Varun Sriram acted for Orbgen Technologies, operator of ticket-booking platform TicketNew, in the sale of a majority stake to Alibaba’s SAC Finance. Another market commentator describes market-leading lawyer Dina Wadia as a “knowledge leader, accessible and prompt” and Manav Raheja as “diligent and reliable”. Firm strategist Amit Kapur has been elevated to senior partner.

The practice at J Sagar Associates, led by leading lawyer Farhad Sorabjee and Dhirendra Negi, enters the highly recommended tier on the back of strong performances representing companies in public-interest litigation. Amar Gupta advised Microsoft, for example, in a case before the Supreme Court about the online distribution of violent sexual content, while other firms are representing Facebook, Yahoo and Google in the matter. An expert committee of the Supreme Court is determining whether some proposed measures are feasible. Dheeraj Nair and Vinod Kumar has acted for Pepsi in suits about its use of water from the Tamiraparani River in Tamil Nadu. The case is expected to affect the company and Coca Cola as half their southern India production capacity is supplied by the river.

J Sagar Associates’s solid team caters to both financial investors, and project operators and developers in the energy and natural resources sector. “Selected the practice team,” says a client, “based on their reputation for knowledge, experience, competence and result in the oil and gas sector in India.” The “extremely knowledgeable, friendly and open” Venkatesh Prasad, a projects leading lawyer, Vishnu Sudarsan and “competent, proactive” Manvinder Singh advised Hero Future Energies, an operator of solar and wind energy projects, on the up to $125 million investment by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of The World Bank Group. The team conducted vendor due diligence on Hero and structured different agreements, such as the share subscription and shareholders’ agreements. Prasad and Sumanto Basu, who has since left, assisted Oil and Natural Gas Corporation on its nearly $1.2 billion acquisition of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation’s 80% stake in the KG-OSN-2001/3 gas block in Andhra Pradesh’s Krishna Godavari Basin. Ashish Suman, a projects M&A specialist, joins from MV Kini & Co.

J Sagar Associates jumps into the highly recommended ranks due to skills at helping TMT clients in M&A, private equity and corporate services. Sandeep Mehta assisted Nielsen, a US information, data and measurement company, in a meter management joint venture between Broadcast Audience Research Council and Tam Media Research. Vikram Raghani, Anand Lakra, Farhad Sorabjee and Reeti Choudhary advised Geometric, a product lifecycle management engineering solutions provider, on its scheme-of-arrangement transfer of its IT-enabled engineering services to HCL Technologies.