Russin & Vecchi law firm news

French firm Gide Loyrette Nouel has poached an in-house lawyer as well as a senior lawyer from a rival firm to bolster its Vietnam practice.

Nishimura & Asahi, the largest of Japan’s “Big Four” law firms, has launched its first representative office in Southeast Asia. The new office in Ho Chi Minh will be the firm’s second overseas venture, after its first international office was launched in Beijing only three months ago.

International law firm Linklaters has advised borrowers on the US$225m Saigon Premier Container Terminal port project in Ho Chi Minh City. The project is Vietnam’s first port built by foreign investment and a 20/80 joint venture by the state-owned Tan Thuan Industrial Promotion Company (IPC) and the world’s second-largest port operating group, Dubai Port World (DPW).

Global law firm associations are doubling their efforts in this region to make sure their members secure a piece of the advisory pie

Jones Day has acted on the first cross-border residential mortgage-backed securities offering for a Taiwanese bank - Hsinchu International Bank.

Shearman & Sterling's Hong Kong, New York and Silicon Valley offices have advised the underwriters on the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange listings of two Taiwanese companies.

Taiwan's notoriously oligopolistic legal market shows clear signs of deep-seated change. And, as ALB reports, intransigence is as hard as ever to find on the island - especially in the legal community

Taiwan's notoriously oligopolistic legal market shows clear signs of deep-seated change. And, as ALB reports, intransigence is as hard as ever to find on the island - especially in the legal community

The Asian financial crisis may have bled Thailand's coffers dry, but it created lush fields for lawyers to farm - and farm them they did. Now, as the Thai economy turns around and the restructuring work peters out, foreign firms without a solid local practice are being faced with a choice: reinvest in the region - or retreat. Lauren Scott reports from Bangkok.

What were the top deals of 2003? ALB set itself the difficult task of singling out the 10 most innovative, groundbreaking and significant deals of the year in the Asia-Pacific region. And here's what we came up with ...

Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta Display has completed its first-ever offering of global depositary shares (GDSs).

Vietnam is to throw open the doors to its domestic legal market to foreign law firms, as the government unveiled new laws on 22 July.

Heading north, Heading south
Vietnam's lawyers are in a holding pattern, recovering from the excessive optimism of the past decade and waiting for the payoff of market reforms and international trade agreements to materialise. A handful of firms are positioning themselves well for the expected windfall