Clifford Chance Targets India -
Related Work With Singapore Securities Team
Emma Sadowski
Legal Week - 04-18-2008
Clifford Chance is preparing to strengthen its Indian offering with the launch of a new team in its Singapore office.
The Magic Circle firm is set to form a capital markets group in the office, which will focus solely on Indian clients, later this year.
Capital markets partner Edward Bradley will be relocating to Singapore in September to help build the new team, which is likely to include six Indian-trained lawyers from the Singapore and Hong Kong offices.
The firm already has an Indian practice group, led by banking partner Chris Wyman in London, but wants to capture more of the growing inbound and outbound investment work coming from the country.
Wyman told Legal Week: "We have been working from the outside [of India] for more than half a century and have always had a focus on the rise of India. The economic power has moved east."
Bradley added: "We are going to set up a group of lawyers in Singapore who will do nothing but capital markets work."
Clifford Chance, in keeping with many other London firms, is waiting for India to open its doors to foreign law firms. The firm told Legal Week that it intended to open an office in the country as soon as the current restrictive rules are changed.
Wyman added: "We are frustrated by the delay. It is inefficient for our clients to have to sit on the outside and wait."
The firm already has around 190 lawyers advising on matters relating to India spread across many of its global offices. These include around 30 partners in the firm's corporate, private equity, capital markets and infrastructure practices covering India-related work.
The firm is also actively recruiting trainees from three Indian universities -- a growing trend among U.K. firms, with SJ Berwin and Herbert Smith also targeting junior Indian lawyers.
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