King & Wood has opened a new nine-partner office in Singapore, marking its third new office in the less than six months since the Chinese firm formally split from Australia’s Mallesons.
The firm said the launch reflected deepening economic ties between the Chinese mainland and Southeast Asia, with the new office set to advise clients on cross-border investment, financing, corporate transactions, regulatory compliance, investigations, dispute resolution and private wealth matters.
"Singapore occupies a unique position in the regional and global economy," said King & Wood's global chairman, Wang Junfeng. "It is the gateway for investment throughout Southeast Asia, one of the world's leading financial centres, a major hub for international arbitration and technology, and an increasingly important destination and springboard for Chinese companies going global."
He added the new office "builds on the firm's longstanding presence in the market and is a natural extension of our international platform and our commitment to supporting clients across China, Southeast Asia and beyond."
The office will be led by current King & Wood partner Harry Liu, a dispute resolution specialist currently based in Shanghai. The founding team also includes King and Wood corporate partners Morgan Jiang and David Fei, capital markets partners Edward Jing, Gao Yimin and Liu Xiaoguang, banking and finance partner Elle Zhang and dispute resolution partners Sophie Qi and Bai Bing.
The launch hands King & Wood an on-the-ground presence in Southeast Asia, after Mallesons kept hold of the Singapore office of the combined firm – known as King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) – following its split at the end of March.
As well as its bases in mainland China and Hong Kong, King & Wood retained KWM's offices in Japan and the US after the separation. It also expanded its North America footprint earlier this year with launches in Los Angeles and Vancouver, citing growing Chinese investment in the region. It said its new Singapore office was expected to work closely with its wider network, particularly Hong Kong.
KWM confirmed last year that it would separate into two successor firms, 14 years after it was created through the high-profile merger of King & Wood and leading Australian firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques. Junfeng said in December the decision reflected the firms’ “different strategic horizons”.
KWM operated as a verein, with separate profit pools and independent partnerships, that GLP understands was dissolved as part of the split. The two standalone firms said they would work together on a non-exclusive basis following the separation.
The split came as many large international law firms rethought their China strategies amid simmering geopolitical tensions between China and the West.
Dentons formally separated from its Chinese member firm, Dacheng Law Offices, in 2023, ending their 2015 alliance due to China’s tightening cybersecurity, data protection and national security regulations.
A spate of US and UK law firms have also closed offices in mainland China, where the headcount of Am Law 100 firms has fallen by 25% over the last two years, according to publicly available data tracked by Pirical.
Some global firms have pivoted towards Singapore as their primary hub for their Asia-Pacific activities, drawn by political stability, dispute resolution demand and the city-state's role as the region's centre for private equity investment.
Loeb & Loeb recently opened an office in Singapore after recruiting capital markets partner Xavier Amadei from HSF Kramer, according to Law.com, while in April Simpson Thacher announced it was relaunching there after 20 years with a team focused on private equity and M&A. Firms including Hogan Lovells, Sidley Austin and Milbank have also made high-profile lateral hires in Singapore recently across private equity, corporate and banking and finance.
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