Linklaters and South Africa’s Webber Wentzel announced today they will end their 13-year alliance, in a move GLP understands will close the last exclusive arrangement between an independent South African law firm and a major London outfit.
The alliance is set to come to an end in November. The two firms, which have worked together for more than 60 years, presented the decision as mutual and amicable, noting in a joint statement that as their “respective strategies have evolved, they have jointly agreed that they can best serve their clients by returning to the more informal structure that characterised their relationship before the alliance”.
Gareth Driver, senior partner of Webber Wentzel, said: “Our relationship with Linklaters spans more than half a century, and we hold the firm and its people in the highest regard. This marks the next chapter for Webber Wentzel as a proudly African firm with deep South African roots and a track record of advising on the continent’s most significant matters. We look forward to continued growth alongside our clients across the continent.”
Aedamar Comiskey, Linklaters’ senior partner and chair, said: “I’d like to thank Gareth and everyone at Webber Wentzel for their partnership, which we have deeply valued over many years. Our commitment to supporting our clients in Africa remains as strong as ever. We’ll continue to serve them as we always have, drawing on our long-standing relationships in the region and the strength of our global team.”
The move is unlikely to materially affect Linklaters, which grew into a £2.5bn business in FY26 with average profit per equity partner of £2.5m, fuelled by strong growth in the US and Asia.
It ends an alliance that gave the firm’s global clients access to Webber Wentzel’s 400 lawyers across Johannesburg and Cape Town, as part of a relationship that included joint training, business development and more than 40 lawyer secondments, according to Currency News.
The move comes amid a period of churn in South Africa’s legal market among international firms. In March, the 120-lawyer South African arm of Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) left the global firm and launched as an independent business, 15 years after NRF entered the market through a merger with Deneys Reitz, then one of South Africa’s largest firms.
In late 2024, legacy Hogan Lovells announced the closure of its Johannesburg office, along with offices in Sydney and Warsaw, citing a focus on “strategic markets”, around the same time that A&O Shearman shuttered its office in the city as part of the restructuring that followed the merger of Allen & Overy and New York firm Shearman & Sterling.
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