Bryan Cave has hired Ignatius Hwang to join as a partner in the firm’s Hong Kong office. Ignatius will head the firm’s projects practice in Asia. He will be aided by various other experienced projects practitioners in the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore offices.

Source: www.lawfuel.com

Philadelphia’s Duane Morris has recently opened two new offices in Vietnam. The offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi will specialize in energy, mergers and acquisitions, and project finance. They are intended to supplement the firm’s office in Singapore, which has become an up-and-coming hub of pharmaceutical development and international finance. The Singapore office opened in January with eight attorneys focusing primarily on finance and energy. Duane Morris has been growing over the past decade, opening offices in nine cities between 1997 and 2005, and more than doubling its size. The firm now has about 650 lawyers.
Source: www.philly.com

Duane Morris has begun merger discussions with several London firms. The Philadelphia firm’s London office currently has eight partners, but the firm wants to expand to 200 lawyers through a merger. Firm chairman, Sheldon Bonovitz, reported that the ideal merger candidate will have corporate strength, international capability, and a compatible culture. Duane Morris has also opened offices in Singapore, Vietnam, and Baltimore in the past six months.
Source: www.thelawyer.com

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has finally closed its Singapore office, after announcing intentions to close back in September of 2006. Wanting to focus on China, last week’s departure of China head Douglas Markel gave the firm the needed push to close in Singapore. In China, the firm also has offices in Beijing and Shanghai. The two remaining partners, Bruce Cooper and Yeelong Tan, will relocate to Hong Kong. Closing in Singapore will end Freshfields’ joint venture with Singapore firm Drew & Napier. Much of the firm’s restructuring efforts over the past year have focused on Asia – Paul Ng was promoted to the partnership in Hong Kong, and James Wood was relocated from London to Tokyo.
Source: www.thelawyer.com

Jones Day senior associate Alex Cull has been hired by Norton Rose for their Singapore office. Cull joins the firm as a partner in their energy team. Through his work at Jones Day, Cull has a decade of experience in the energy industry, specializing in oil and gas project development, M&A and financing throughout Asia. Norton Rose energy and infrastructure partner, Jeff Smith, is excited about what Cull has to offer to the firm and sees this addition as another important step in the growth of the firm’s Asia practice.
Source: www.thelawyer.com

Shipping firm Thomas Cooper & Stibbard will open an office in Paris after hiring a three-partner shipping team from the local office of Reed Smith Richards Butler. Lars Lewis, the former managing partner of Reed Smith’s Paris office, along with Peter Iglikowski and Christophe Hunkeler will make the move next month. Thomas Cooper now has a total of six offices, including those in London, Singapore, Athens, Vancouver and Madrid. The firm also recently hired shipping and insurance specialist Ben Browne from Shaw & Croft for its London office.
Source: www.legalweek.com

Duane Morris opened a six-attorney office in Singapore. New York partner Eduardo Ramos-Gomez will be the managing partner in Singapore, along with five new partners from various international firms. Ramos-Gomez was the Mexican ambassador to Singapore from 1998 to 2001. The new office, now open after a year of planning, will focus on corporate finance, project finance, energy, cross-border transactions, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and telecommunications. Duane Morris also has plans to open two offices in Vietnam (located in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) in the spring of 2007.
Source: www.law.com