Link Legal India Law Services has a disputes practice covering a wide range of sectors, including aviation, banking and financial services, construction and energy. It is respected in the market as a leading construction, energy, projects and infrastructure player, and has strong aviation and power sector expertise. The team has been very active the past year, and a specialised arbitration group was created with work in this sphere on the upswing. Its contentious insolvency and aviation groups have expanded alongside its construction arbitration practice. The firm’s commitment to maintaining its construction pre-eminence is demonstrated through its retention of an engineer with substantial construction and project management experience as part of the team. The firm climbs into the second tier for commercial disputes this year. Link Legal celebrated the opening of a new office in New York City in 2022 and its China desk goes from strength to strength each year, having advised well over 100 Chinese clients.
Co-managing partners Atul Sharma and Nusrat Hassan lead a team of 17 partners that run the dispute resolution group. Other partners include Anand Srivastava, Milanka Chaudhury, Ravi Varma, Abhishek Sharma, Sanjay Gupta, Sidhartha Srivastava, Prasad Dhande, P Ravi Charan, and Abhinav Agnihotri.
In an aviation matter, the team is acting for Delhi International Airport in a writ petition filed against Union of India, Delhi Cantonment Board and others, wherein the client has challenged the constitutional validity of a section of the Cantonments Act while also seeking directions of the court for declaring that the land forming part of the IGI Airport is not a “cantonment” within the meaning of another section of the Cantonments Act.
The firm has been instructed by India Infrastructure Finance Company and IFCI for representation before the Supreme Court. The clients have challenged the judgment of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal where the Appellate Tribunal, while adjudicating on the alleged mismanagement of IL&FS, adopted a procedure where a Resolution Framework was approved with respect to IL&FS and its group companies.
In a high-profile antitrust matter, Link Legal lawyers are representing SpiceJet for an investigation by the Director General and in proceedings by the competition regulator with respect to alleged concerted action by various airlines in a fuel surcharge fixing scheme. The client, and other airlines, preferred appeals against the order of the CCI before the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT). After considering the matter, the COMPAT remanded the matter to the CCI and held that the CCI violated the principles of natural justice in that the airlines were not given sufficient opportunity to present their case.
The firm welcomed partners Nitin Kaushik, Jinni Sinha and Sayantani Dutta last year, the latter two coming from Ortis Law Offices and Wadia Ghandy & Co, respectively. Several members left, including managing partner Ananda Chaudhuri, Kashish Arora and Bhalchandra Palav.
Key clients of the firm are Axiom Cordages, Drake & Scull Water and Energy India, Indus Towers, Ramky Infrastructure, Spicejet and Vestige Marketing.
Client feedback
“Excellent handholding and detailed analysis in the pre-dispute stage. They were good at expanding the scope of our claim and providing ground-level support of evidence analysis. Finally, there was excellent legal support before the tribunal.” – Commercial and transactions
“Prompt, good understanding and thorough with legal issues.” – Insolvency
Sanjay Gupta
“Good analytics and great professional legal support.”
