ELP promotes 2 to partnership and adds Transfer Pricing practice in Pune with Ex-KPMG hire

Economic Laws Practice has promoted Ritesh Kanodia and Aqeel Sheerazi to associate partners with effect from April 1, 2011 and added Transfer Pricing practice in its Pune office with Ex-KPMG Ajit Tolani..Economic Laws Practice has promoted Ritesh Kanodia (pictured left) and Aqeel Sheerazi (pictured centre) to associate partners with effect from April 1, 2011 and added Transfer Pricing practice in its Pune office with Ex-KPMG Ajit Tolani (pictured right)..Managing Partner Rohan Shah said, “Both Aqeel and Ritesh, will bring their commendable experience and skills to play their new roles”..Ritesh has been with ELP since December 2005 and will be primarily handling tax, with emphasis on indirect-tax..Speaking with Bar & Bench on becoming a partner, Ritesh Kanodia said, “It has been a great experience with ELP. In terms of intellectuals and in terms of the quality of work that ELP delivers, ELP is in itself a benchmark. Becoming a partner in such a huge organisation is really something which I’m feeling quite excited about. Another factor is the way my career was structured during the last five years as it was a quick progression from an associate level to a partnership level in a short span and this is amazing. This couldn’t have happened in any other organisation apart from ELP. The quality and the kind of inputs we get here, from a career perspective it’s a great place”..Aqeel Sheerazi will be handling litigation, and has been in the profession for over two decades. Aqeel has been associated with ELP since April 2006. He was unavailable for comment at the time of going to the press..Ajit Tolani of KPMG will be heading the Transfer Pricing practice for the firm from Pune..Speaking on joining ELP, Ajit Tolani said, “I will be looking after the Transfer Pricing practice at ELP. I was with KPMG for ten years and was handling Transfer Pricing for them, including three years in New York to learn the US Transfer Pricing. The idea is to put my both domestic and international experience to use, at ELP”..Tolani added to say, “This will make ELP as the only law firm in the country with Transfer Pricing capabilities. And we are building up a team across India on Transfer Pricing and that will put ELP in a very unique position across India. I happened to have worked on APA i.e. Advanced Pricing Agreement which is basically an agreement between the tax payers and the Government, and in India only a couple of professionals have a handful of experience. Basically this is a US thing and right now it is being introduced in India and nobody here has the practical experience to handle this. This is something I have worked with in the US, and have negotiated the APA between US and Japan and US and Canada. So it is a very unique skill set which ELP will now get through me”..This brings the total number of partners in ELP to 20. Out of 20, 16 are in the Mumbai office, 3 are in Delhi and 1 is in Pune.