Two new international mergers have gone live today both involving leading Australian firms.
Blake Dawson and Ashurst have come together under the UK firm's banner, while fellow Australian firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques and Chinese firm King & Wood have formed the first Sino-Australian law operation as they combine under the name King & Wood Mallesons.
In Blake Dawson's case, the two firms have combined their Asian operations in the first phase of their strategy with a view to initiating a full merger in 2014. The combined operation will have 1,700 lawyers and 24 offices globally.
Managing partner of Ashurst in Australia John Carrington said: "We are increasingly finding many of our clients need a legal services provider with a global footprint, including a broad spread of offices across Asia. We anticipate this need will only increase as the pace of globalisation accelerates."
King & Wood Mallesons will see the Australian and Chinese partnerships of the two firms combining along with the Hong Kong operations. The new firm will operate as a Swiss Verein structure, but their full financial integration plan is yet to be announced.
Within Australia itself, both new firms enjoy a strong reputation with Blake Dawson receiving four top tier rankings in last year's IFLR1000 and Mallesons' bagging five.
In China, both King & Wood and Mallesons Stephen Jaques had a strong presence in different sections of the market and the combined firm will be looking to build on its reputation in both domestic and cross border work.
These developments follow the news earlier in the week that Linklaters had approached Australian firm Allens Arthur Robinson to begin preliminary discussions about a possible link-up. Allens is currently a 'best friend' of Slaughter and May and it remains to be seen how this relationship will be affected.