As we continue to drive the expansion of our offering in the Asia-Pacific region, we are pleased to appoint Richard Keady and Pádraig Walsh as Partners to our Hong Kong office. These appointments bring the new partners in Asia to seven so far this year, including four in Hong Kong. We will now have 28 partners in Asia.

Richard is highly experienced in dispute resolution including arbitration and regulatory matters. He will work alongside Catherine Mun, another of our recent recruits, to build our international dispute resolution practice in the China region.

Pádraig focuses on corporate and commercial transactional and advisory matters and he becomes our fourth new corporate partner in Asia this year. We will continue to develop our international corporate practice in order to meet demand for our sector-specialised corporate expertise.

Matthew Laight, our Head of China commented: “We have targeted expansion in China in recognition of the opportunities that exist for our key sectors in the region and we are delighted to welcome Richard and Pádraig. We will work with our new partners to further drive our development across Asia.”

David Kerr, CEO commented on our strategy in Asia: “We have been in Hong Kong for almost 20 years and our presence in Asia has been a success story which we want to develop further. We look forward to working with our new partners as we continue to develop our presence in Asia, as our existing and potential clients’ needs in the region increase.”

In 2012 so far we have promoted John Koh and welcomed Lorraine Tay, Catherine Mun, Marcus Chow and Xia Chao as new partners. We have also appointed Troy Rice as Of Counsel for Intellectual Property in Beijing.