The Global Competition Review ranked AZB & Partners as an ‘Elite Firm for Competition Law’ in the 2022 Edition of the GCR 100, a comprehensive listing of the world’s best competition practices published annually. It is only one of two Firms in India to have been ranked in this top tier of the GCR rankings.

Excerpts from the GCR 100 on our Competition practice:

Samir Gandhi leads the talented competition team at AZB & PARTNERS, which boasts five partners, one of counsel and 19 associates across offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore. AZB added five associates, promoted Gaurav Bansal to partner in October 2021 and hired Ram Kumar Poornachandran, who previously headed the team at Talwar Thakore & Associates, that same month.

The firm is navigating several complex and sensitive antitrust matters on behalf of an impressive list of confidential clients before the CCI. Public matters include advising Google on a slew of investigations in India, including abuse of dominance allegations pertaining to Android TV and Android smartphones, which were both in the investigation stage at the
time of writing. The firm continues to represent Google in appellate proceedings, challenging the CCI’s landmark 2018 order that fined the company about 18 million for search bias. The team also successfully represented the International Air Transport Association, which was cleared for a second time in April 2021 of claims that its implementation of a new cargo accounts settlement system violated abuse of dominance rules. Additionally, AZB defended IndiGo in a high-profile investigation examining whether the country’s five major domestic airlines colluded through anticompetitive agreements or algorithms to align ticket pricing. The CCI cleared the airlines in February 2021.

On the deal side, AZB acted for Jio Platforms on the sale of a 9.9% stake to Facebook, which the CCI unconditionally cleared in June 2020. Bombardier also tapped the firm to steer the sale of its transportation business to Alstom, which the CCI approved in September 2020. The firm has also helped defend key client Uber against allegations that it engaged in
predatory pricing, and illegally offered rebates and discounts to induce loyalty in New Delhi. The CCI dismissed the six-year-old complaint in July 2021. AZB also advised Uber on the sale of its food delivery business in India to Zomato.