These 7 law firms script Reliance - Walt Disney JV in India
Reliance Industries Limited and Viacom 18 Media Private Limited have entered into a strategic joint venture with The Walt Disney Company.
Paramount Global, which had a stake in Viacom 18 Media, has sold it to Reliance Industries as part of the larger transaction.
In addition, RIL has agreed to invest ₹11,500 crore (~US$ 1.4 billion) into the JV for its growth strategy at the closing of the deal.
Khaitan & Co acted as legal counsel to Reliance Industries and Viacom18 on this transaction.
The deal team was led by Haigreve Khaitan (Partner), Kartick Maheshwari (Partner), Deepak Jodhani (Partner), Mehul Shah (Partner), Tanu Banerjee (Partner) with assistance from Rahul Dutt (Partner), and included Gautam Suseel (Principal Associate), Ishan Johri (Principal Associate) and Tanya Singh Shah (Senior Associate).
Khaitan & Co team also consisted of:
Anisha Chand (Partner) and Anshuman Sakle (Partner), Soham Banerjee (Principal Associate), Alisha Mehra (Senior Associate), Rishabh Vohra (Associate) and Yatharth V Singh (Associate), on Competition Law related aspects.
Tanu Banerjee (Partner), Ishan Johri (Principal Associates), Heema Shirvaikar (Senior Associate), Virali Nagda (Senior Associate), Bimbita Kateel (Associate), Akriti Sirsalewala (Associate), Prakhar Khandelwal (Associate), Sankalp Jain (Associate) and Naina Bora (Associate) on Technology, Media and Entertainment laws related aspects.
Adheesh Nargolkar (Partner), Smriti Yadav (Partner), Sunaina Brahma (Senior Associate), Shubham Shende (Associate) and Paarth Samdani (Associate), on Intellectual Property related aspects.
Aman Yagnik (Counsel), Rushabh Gala (Principal Associate), Jamsheed Dadachanji (Senior Associate), Amit Panwar (Senior Associate), Dhruvi Dharia (Associate) and Jaideep Sharma (Paralegal) on the Merger Scheme related aspects; and
Deepak Kumar (Partner), Sneha Janakiraman (Partner), Madhav Khosla (Principal Associate), Saurav Bhaumik (Principal Associate), Deeksha Malik (Senior Associate), Divyansh Joshi (Associate), Smriti Nair (Associate), Anadi Saxena (Associate), Shreya Sukhtankar (Associate), Hardik Malik (Associate), Miheer Jain (Associate) on the due diligence.
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co also acted as legal counsel to Reliance Industries and Viacom18 on this transaction.
The core transaction team was led by Pallavi Shroff (Managing Partner) and included Iqbal Khan (Partner M&A), Puja Sondhi (Partner M&A), Shweta Shroff (Partner Competition), Shashank Mishra (Partner TMT) and Shivangi Talwar (Partner Investments and Buy-outs), with assistance from Pooja Thomas (Principal Associate), Ashid Basheer (Principal Associate;) and Akshi Rastogi (Senior Associate).
The Competition law team included Pallavi Shroff - Managing Partner; Shweta Shroff Chopra - Partner; Harman Singh Sandhu - Partner; Aman Singh Sethi - Partner; Atreyee Sarkar - Principal Associate; Rahul Shukla - Senior Associate; Sanjana L.B. - Associate, Anik Bhaduri - Associate; Aryika Dadhwal - Associate; Mohsin Rahim - Associate; and Janhavi Singh - Associate.
The transaction team was also supported by General Corporate team including Eshika Maji - Senior Associate; Prerna Saroha - Associate; Aishwarya Srivastava - Associate; Chirag Mangal - Associate; Nidhi Gupta - Associate; Pratim Majumder - Associate; Kanika Mittal - Associate; Akshita Jain - Associate; Jayesh Borele - Associate; Shreya Mukherjee - Associate; and Subham Biswal - Associate.
The Regulatory aspects was taken care of by Parv Kaushik - Associate, Ritika Bansal - Associate; and Vedika Rathore - Associate.
The Litigation team included Vaibhav Singh - Partner; Shreya Jain - Principal Associate; Jyotsna Vilva - Associate; Manas Kotak - Associate; and Ojasvi Shankar - Associate.
The Real Estate team included Rohit Bajaj - Partner and Shridha Malhotra - Principal Associate.
The Employment team consisted of Kriti Kaushik - Partner; Istuti Kapoor - Associate; Lijin Varughese - Associate; and Shalini Prem - Associate.
The Insurance team was led by Ashish Teni – Partner and Riddhi Misra - Senior Associate.
The Intellectual Property aspects were looked at by Mukul Baveja - Partner; Garima Tripathi - Associate; Abhineet Kalia - Associate; and Dhruv Grover - Associate.
The Data Protection team included Shahana Chatterji - Partner; Punya Varma - Principal Associate; Veda Handa - Senior Associate; and Rahul Rajasekar - Associate.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom acted as international legal counsel to Reliance Industries and Viacom18 on this transaction.
AZB & Partners served as legal counsel to Disney on the transaction. The AZB team was led by Managing Partner Zia Mody along with Partners Roxanne Anderson and Divya Mundra.
AZB Partners Ashwath Rau and Kashish Bhatia also advised Bodhi Tree in this deal.
Covington & Burling served as legal counsel to Disney on the transaction. Covington has also advised Reliance Industries in the past.
Cleary Gottlieb was lead outside counsel to Disney on the transaction.
The transaction team consisted of Tihir Sarkar (Partner), Nallini Puri (Partner), Dan Tierney (Partner), and James Soussa (Associate) of the Firm's London M&A group, as well as many other Cleary colleagues around the world.
JSA advised Paramount Global on this transaction.
The transaction team consisted of Lalit Kumar (Lead Partner) and Bharati Joshi (Partner).
The transaction values the JV at ₹70,352 crore (~US$ 8.5 billion) on a post-money basis, excluding synergies. Post completion of the above steps, the JV will be controlled by RIL and owned 16.34% by RIL, 46.82% by Viacom18 and 36.84% by Disney.
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