The biggest law firm tie-up between FoxMandal and Little & Co. is going through a rough phase and the internal disputes within the firm had reached the Bombay High Court. Bar & Bench had on December 13, 2011 reported the story, which was first carried by Financial express.

It is believed that the partners within the firm were having internal conflicts amongst themselves, which has taken a serious turn.

Here is a timeline and information analysis on the dispute:

May 2006 - FoxMandal and Little sign a MoU to merge the law firm practice.

2009 - Little & Co cancelled the MoU signed between the two firms in 2006, but later withdrew the cancellation the same year.

December 2009 - Little & Co. issued a letter to FoxMandal making various allegations against Som Mandal and other partners.

April 28, 2010 - Little withdraws the December 2009 letter and withdraws its allegation.

2010 till June 2011 - However, various issues kept cropping up and both FoxMandal and Little decided to refer the matter for arbitration. The MoU provided for an arbitration clause.

June 2011 - FoxMandal appointed Justice VN Khare while Little appointed Justice Srikrishna as their arbitrators. Both the arbitrators appointed Justice Santosh Hegde as the third arbitrator.

The lawyers for FoxMandal are DH Law Associates while Federal & Rashmikant is representing Little & Co.

September 2011 - Little tries to make changes in the Partnership Deed without consulting FoxMandal. That is when a petition under Section 9 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 was filed before the District Judge in Noida against Little & Co management committee pleading the court to appoint interim management committee and to restrain Little & Co from altering the original partnership deed.

The District Court restrained Little from changing the composition of the Partnership firm or altering the original partnership deed in any manner.

September 12, 2011- Thereafter, as the highest stakeholder (14 % in the overall partnership of FoxMandal Little) Som Mandal filed criminal complaint under Sections 120(B), 406, 409 & 420 of IPC alleging cheating, criminal breach of trust against three partners of Little & Co., Ajay Khatlawala, Farookh Sidhwa and J Kapadia. The Court issued summons against the three partners.

October 26, 2011 - In the interim, Little & Co, moved a petition under Section 9 of the Act before the Bombay High Court. The Single Judge ordered both the parties to go for mediation and appointed Iqbal Chagla as the mediator. However, the Court also ordered that the parties shall not proceed further with any pending civil/criminal/arbitration proceedings until further orders of this Hon’ble Court. The Court also ordered to defreeze all accounts of Little & Co.

November 22, 2011 - FoxMandal goes on an appeal before the Division Bench against the order of the Single Judge. FoxMandal informed the Court that they are not ready to appear before the Mediator in view of the direction to continue stay on all the proceedings.

December 8, 2011 - The Division Bench on December 8, 2011 observed that having regard to the stand adopted by the appellant FoxMandal, no useful purpose will be served by referring the parties to appear before the learned Mediator and remanded the matter back to the learned Single Judge to hear the parties. In the meantime, the parties shall not proceed further with any pending civil/criminal/arbitration proceedings until learned single Judge passes ad-interim order.

FoxMandal is now planning to move the Supreme Court on this issue. It appears that this dispute will lead to end of the biggest law firm merger.

Client sues Little Senior Partner for recovery of documents deposited in Escrow with Little

December 5, 2011 - Hind Dyes Manufacturing Company and others filed a suit against Senior Partner Ajay Khatlawala before the Bombay High Court for recovery of documents deposited with Little which acted as an escrow agent for both parties in a transaction. Hind has alleged in the suit that they have suffered severe financial losses valued at Rs. 35 crore ($ 7 million). The fact of the matter is in view of the disputes between the parties to the transaction and pendency of the proceedings in the court, it was not proper for the escrow agent to hand over the documents to either party and therefore, an application was made by Little to the court seeking directions regarding the escrow documents. Despite the pendency of such application, Hind and its shareholders, the party depositing the documents filed a separate suit against the escrow agent mainly for recovery of the documents.    

December 14, 2011 - The matter was listed before Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari for notice of motion on December 14, 2011. The Court has made an order for depositing the documents with the Court by December 16, 2011. The Court has further directed to place the application and suit on board for withdrawal, next week.   

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 15, 2011

Earlier, our post mentioned that a claim of Rs. 35 crore has been made against the Defendant Ajay Khatlawala for "breach of trust" . However, the words "breach of trust" are not mentioned in the suit and the same have been removed from the second last paragraph of our post.