Clyde & Co sets up in Australia
06 July 2012
Clyde & Co has entered the Australian market by pilfering an eight-strong team of
Allens' lawyers, including six partners. That's before the ink is even dry on Allens'
new alliance agreement with Linklaters.
Clydes' entry is similar to that of
Allen & Overy, which launched in Australia in 2010 after
poaching 14 lawyers from Clayton Utz . And like A&O, Clydes is also opening new offices in Sydney and
Perth. Three of the Allens defectors will be put to work in Sydney, one
in Perth and the other four will be based the firm's Singapore and Hong
Kong offices. The new Australian branches, which will focus on
contentious insurance and reinsurance, will be led by John Edmond,
currently
the head of insurance and reinsurance at Allens' Sydney office.
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Another kind of poaching yesterday
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It's been a hectic year for Clydes, which at the end of last year
swallowed up merged with Barlow Lyde & Gilbert. As with many mergers, there were inevitable teething problems and a seven strong team of legacy BLG-ers in Hong Kong
jumped ship for other major firms in the city-state. But the firm says it's now keen to renew its focus on Asia-Pacific as part of a general expansionist strategy. The new offices will open their doors on 1 October, co-incidentally the same date that
Herbert Smith and
Freehills will become one.
Allens is putting a brave face on the defections. Its chief exec Michael Rose explained "
we made the conscious decision to exit our insurance partners in Asia" and the defections are "
a natural outworking of that". Whatever outworking might mean.