Ashurst in tie-up with Australian law firm

Ashurst, one of the City's top law firms, has agreed a tie-up with Australia's Blake Dawson to combine their Asian operations ahead of an expected full merger by 2014.

Both partnerships voted for the combination at the weekend to boost their businesses in fast-growing Asian economies. The firms' Asian operations will operate under the Ashurst name and Blake Dawson will rebrand as Ashurst in Australia.

Charlie Geffen, Ashurst's senior partner, said expansion in Asia was expensive and good lawyers were difficult to hire.

"They have a pool of high-quality lawyers, a good number of whom speak Japanese, Mandarin, Indonesian and other Asian languages. Both firms will share the economic and resource cost and they will gain English law capability and an international brand."

He said the firms would target business in energy and resources, infrastructure and financial services.

"The world has turned east and there is a lack of growth in Europe and the UK," Mr Geffen said.

A full merger was put on hold to allow time for integration and to let Blake Dawson make up a 10 per cent shortfall in partner profits compared with Ashurst's £723,000 per partner.

Ashurst follows other top firms such as Allen & Overy, Norton Rose and Clifford Chance into Australia.

The deal leaves Ashurst with plenty of work to do in Asia. Blake Dawson has a small office in Shanghai and Ashurst has one in Hong Kong.

Mr Geffen said the main opportunity for Western firms in China was on outbound work, which only requires a small presence on the ground.