Practice Area
GENERAL CORPORATE
We offer clients a complete range of legal advice and services, from day-to-day regulatory and compliance issues to pivotal matters like buying, selling, and merging assets and ownership. We’re in the business of anticipating and minimizing risk, in its various forms, while always maintaining focus on the business objectives of the client. Our General Corporate practice covers following areas.
1. Corporate Commercial Advisory:
One of our key practice areas is general corporate and commercial advisory across various sectors of the economy. The firm’s corporate and commercial practice not only includes working on complex M&A deals and structuring transactions, but on a variety of commercial and business issues such as drafting, reviewing and negotiating a wide range of business contracts; banking, debt and recovery issues and providing advice on a day-to-day basis on corporate, regulatory, governance and operational matters. We advise clients on issues relating to liabilities of companies, duties and obligations of individual directors and governance risks faced by the boards of directors.
2. Corporate Insolvency and Restructuring:
We advise clients on corporate restructuring and business reorganization in distress and special situations. We have a team of experienced lawyers advising on demergers, hiving offs, amalgamations, etc. preparing schemes of arrangement with creditors and shareholders and where required by law, obtaining approvals of the concerned high courts/ National Company Law Tribunals of various states across the country. We also advise on voluntary liquidation and dissolution of companies and defend client’s interests where winding up or similar proceedings are initiated against them.
3. Mergers and Acquisitions:
We advise clients on international and domestic mergers and demergers, share swaps, stock and asset purchases, mergers (amalgamations) through court schemes, joint ventures, restructuring and spin-offs. We provide innovative and comprehensive advice aimed at maximising value for our clients. We support our clients through each stage of a transaction, from due diligence, to finalisation of structure, preparation, negotiation and finalisation of transaction documents, post-acquisition integration and transition. We handle the various, corporate, tax, environmental, competition, intellectual property, employment and other issues related to these transactions.
4. Private Equity and Funds:
We have in-depth experience in advising private equity and venture capital funds and also assisting Indian companies in corporate finance transactions. We assist our clients in providing the full range of legal services, including corporate, tax, finance, real estate, licensing and other regulatory issues. We support our clients through each stage of a transaction, from due diligence, to finalisation of structure, preparation, negotiation and finalisation of transaction documents, post-acquisition integration and transition.
Our litigation team is well equipped to take up corporate and commercial litigation matters starting from lower quasi-judicial authority/lower courts to tribunals up to Supreme Court.
TAX
In the ever-changing increasingly complex economic environment, tax regimes are similarly evolving into greater complexity. The Governmental efforts to increase or maintain tax revenue poses new and difficult challenges for tax planning for businesses. Further, globalization of economic activities also creates complex tax issues requiring deep knowledge of national tax laws, international tax treaties, and information sharing paradigms.
Tax efficiency, avoidance of tax controversy, risk management and the successful resolution of an unavoidable tax dispute are goals that can best be met where the tax team possesses strong national and cross-border experience. We effectively and efficiently partner with our clients to meet these goals. Whether the tax issues involve a single country or are cross-border, our Tax Group partners with our clients to develop effective and innovative solutions.
We understand the business and legal intricacies of international business and taxation. Our tax group is applauded for its forward-thinking approach on tax matters as well as for tax planning in transactional matters including M&A, capital market, project finance, family office, compensation etc. From advisory to compliance to litigation, we offer our services in;
- Goods and Services Tax
- Corporate Tax and Income Tax
- International Tax and transfer pricing
- Customs and Anti-dumping
Our litigation team is well equipped to take up tax litigation matters starting from lower quasi-judicial authority to Tribunals up to Supreme Court.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INVESTMENT
International trade and investment scenario keep on changing. India has become a preferred destination of international investment. Further, new sectors are being opened up for foreign investment. We partner our international investors clients in identifying the sector, due diligence, compliance with various laws and regulations. We advise our clients on Foreign Trade policy, foreign investment policy, foreign exchange regulations etc.
We have assisted many multi-national enterprises in establishing their presence in India and advised organisations across sectors on the changing regulatory environment with regard to foreign investment. We regularly advise non-resident and resident clients looking to create business synergies through international tie-ups either through equity investments or technology tie-ups.
The firm's long-standing international trade regulation and trade policy experience enable us to assist our clients with nearly any type of international trade matter, particularly those involving Customs, export controls or sanctions, anti-dumping, trade remedies or unfair trade practices, trade agreements, foreign investment etc.
We are equipped to handle drafting, negotiating, and implementing any type of agreement in connection with trade and investment activities, including sales and supply contracts, distributor and agency agreements, the establishment of liaison offices, branches and subsidiaries, joint ventures, and mergers and acquisitions. Further we assist our clients in employing dispute avoidance and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to bring about the best and most cost-effective resolutions to disputes.
ECONOMIC OFFENCES
Economic laws, like Company law, or tax laws are no more mere civil laws. They contain numerous criminal provisions attracting severe penalties including imprisonment, hefty penalties and compounding fee etc. With the aggressive tax administration, these provisions are being increasingly used by the state. Further, special laws are being enacted to curb economic crimes.
Defending such allegations, in investigations or in trials, requires in-depth understanding of the underlying laws, inter-relation to various legal provisions of diverse laws and appreciation of special procedural and evidentiary requirements. Our economic offences team is well equipped and experienced in handling such allegations, through investigation to trial to appellate remedies till the highest court of the land.
PRIVATE WEALTH LAW
Wealth planning law in India is complex activity as it requires simultaneous consideration of various laws including community specific succession laws, Investment and currency control regulations and tax laws. These, combined with personal views of family members dispersed across countries, make the structuring exercise complex and challenging. We aim to provide workable options that satisfy the wishes of our clients while at the same time being legally compliant, simple and cost-effective.
We assist our clients with:
- Personal tax planning
- Advice on residency and domicile
- Advice on tax efficient inward/outward investment
- Creating and advising upon domestic/offshore trusts, foundations, companies and other wealth preservation vehicles
- Creating and advising upon overseas pensions schemes and other remuneration trusts
- Creating asset protection structures for family wealth.
- Successions/wills/ estate planning and guidance.
Our private wealth team works closely with our corporate and tax team, which provides full range of tax services.