Sagus Legal is a full-service boutique that just celebrated its third birthday. The commercial litigation practice handles a plethora of disputes, such as shareholder disputes, partnership disputes, antitrust bankruptcy avoidance actions, and conflicts related to securities, commercial contracts, lender liability, real estate, labour and trade and customs. It has a strong power and electricity speciality, as evidenced by its impressive power company client roster. At the time of submission, the firm was handling disputes worth a cumulative value of more than $7.5 billion. The disputes team has grown rapidly in the past few years and now has 14 lawyers. It has offices in New Delhi, Bhubaneshwar and Gurugram. This year the firm ascends a notch in the commercial and government disputes rankings.
Commercial litigation specialists and partners Anand Shrivastava and Shruti Kanodia are the main contacts for disputes-related work. Both partners are empanelled with REC and the firm is empanelled with PFC (two government organisations in the power sector).
In a notable matter, the firm is representing TP Central Odisha Distribution (TCOD) in a dispute that arose out of distribution franchisee agreements entered into between Riverside Utilities, Seaside Utilities and Central Electricity Supply Utility, for non-compliance of the terms of the agreement and for not being able to reduce aggregate technical and commercial losses.
The Tata Power Company has engaged the firm for its dispute before APTEL, challenging the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission’s refusal to amend the licence of the Transmission Licensee. This matter has a far-reaching impact on the sector as it goes to the root of distinction between the scope of operations of a Transmission Licensee and Distribution License under the statutory framework.
Key clients of the firm include Bihar State Power Holding, Coastal Gujarat Power, Jindal Stainless Group, Jubilant Bhartia Group, Maithan Power, Petronet LNG, PowerFinance Corporation, REC and West Bengal State Electricity Distribution.
