AZB & Clifford Chance have decided to end their two-year-old best-friend relationship. Sources at AZB confirmed this development and said “we didn’t expect that the relationship between the firms to end, we thought that the relationship would die a natural death since there were no tangible benefits for either parties”.

AZB and Clifford Chance relationship was reported to have a non-financial agreement and a non-fee sharing agreement. 

Sources further stated “Clifford Chance was looking to enter the lucrative India market but the restriction on entry of foreign law firms in India coupled with the Madras High Court PIL against foreign law firms nailed the decision to end the relationship”.

An India qualified lawyer formerly working at Clifford Chance speaking to Bar & Bench said, “some of the joint mandates did not work for both AZB & Clifford Chance as there were other firms who were quoting much lower fees on joint mandates. For Clifford Chance to enter India it would have to tie up with a smaller Indian law firm. Linklaters, the other magic circle firm has tied up with Talwar Thakore and they have may have created a win-win relationship in the long run”.

Paramita Chatterjee in her column had argued that Indian law firms were shying away from exclusive tie-ups with their foreign counterparts. With the recovery in the domestic economy-gathering pace, Indian firms have a lot to concentrate on in the country itself. In an exclusive tie-up, Indian and foreign law firms refer work related to each others clients but as international acquisition transactions have slowed the advantage of a tie-up has diminished.

Over the last two years, Clifford Chance and AZB tried to share their best practices. Clifford Chance, Global Managing Partner, David Childs speaking to the media at the time of entering into the best friend relationship with AZB had said “with the present restrictions on foreign firms, the two firms we can mutually share our expertise, domain knowledge and have training and secondments of lawyers across the firms”.

AZB has been in the news for its recent restructuring at the Bangalore office. Anup Shah demerged from AZB at Bangalore to go independent, ending a less than two-year-old relationship.

Currently, very few Indian firms have best friend relationship. Trilegal was one of the first Indian law firms to enter a ‘best friends’ relationship with Allen & Overy. ALMT and Clyde & Co, Dua Associates and Garrigues, Vaish and Dacheng Central, Kochhar and MIO Lawyers & Legal Consultants in United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Law Firm of Dr. Khalid Alnowaiser of Saudi Arabia, Surana & Surana and Ferrere are the other relationships entered into by Indian law firms.

Will the AZB and Clifford Chance development lead to the other law firms reassessing their respective relationships?