Nanda & Mehra is a Delhi-based chambers advising domestic and international clients on corporate transactions, commercial disputes, arbitration, and the protection of intellectual property under Indian law.
Nanda & Mehra was established as a working chambers — a place where commercial problems are thought through carefully and argued with conviction. We advise companies, promoters, and overseas businesses on the matters that decide how an enterprise is built, financed, defended, and, where it comes to it, fought over. The work spans the quiet end of corporate advisory, where the object is to keep a client out of disputes, and the contentious end, where a position has already hardened and must be protected before a court or tribunal.
Indian commercial law rewards preparation. A clause drafted with care at the outset of a contract is worth more than any argument made about it later; an entry structure chosen with the right regulatory and tax considerations in mind saves years of unwinding. Our brief, on most matters, is to make those choices visible to the client early — to set out the legal position plainly, name the commercial consequence that sits alongside it, and let the client decide with the full picture in front of them. We do not mistake length for thoroughness, and we do not bury a recommendation under qualifications.
The chambers acts for a deliberately mixed clientele: Indian companies and their founders, foreign investors entering or already operating in the Indian market, and parties on either side of a commercial dispute. That range is intentional. Advising a buyer teaches you how a seller thinks; conducting an arbitration teaches you which clauses fail under pressure. We bring that perspective back into the advisory work, and the advisory discipline back into the disputes.
Company formation, joint ventures, foreign investment, contracts, and ongoing commercial advisory for Indian and overseas businesses.
Civil and commercial litigation before Indian courts and tribunals, and domestic and international arbitration.
Trade mark and copyright prosecution, licensing, and enforcement against infringement and passing off.
We prefer to resolve a matter efficiently where the law and the facts allow it, and to litigate or arbitrate firmly where they do not. The two are not in tension. A client who understands the strength of a position is better placed to settle on sensible terms, and a client who is ready to fight is rarely the one who has to. Our practice is to assess the matter honestly at the start, advise on the realistic outcomes rather than the most hopeful one, and keep the strategy under review as the facts develop.
Because the chambers is compact, the advocate who first hears a matter stays with it. Clients work with the people arguing their case rather than a rotating cast of juniors, and instructions are not lost in handovers. Where a matter calls for specialist senior counsel, local agents in another forum, or expertise outside our areas, we brief and coordinate them rather than stretch beyond what we do well. The aim throughout is the same: clear advice, given in time to be useful, and conduct that the client can stand behind.