The Australian arm of Jones Day is to continue growing its litigation offering as a result of more work in the Australian and international market.

The firm will shortly welcome another litigation partner, John Emmerig, from Ashurst Australia, who will bring the total number of litigations partners at the firm to five, representing 45 percent of the firm’s partnership. “We have a commitment to growing our litigation offering in this market,” said Chris Ahern, partner in charge of the Jones Day Sydney office. “We have attracted strong litigators to carry into the Sydney market our tradition of being a fierce opponent in major litigation."

Jones Day was recently named one of the top four “most feared” litigation firms in the U.S. by more than 300 corporate counsels in the BTI Consulting Group Litigation Outlook 2013 report. Each year the group polls in-house lawyers to determine which big law firms they dread “seeing as lead opposing counsel in a litigation case.” This year the four firms were Boies Schiller, Jones Day, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden Arps. This is the first time Boies Schiller and Jones Day have made the cut, replacing Quinn Emanuel and Latham & Watkins from last year's list.

The Australian Jones Day litigation team works on a significant amount of cross boarder litigation for both U.S. clients and Australian clients. “One area we have been quite successful in building is in the defence of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) allegations. In the U.S. that has become an area of focus as part as a tidy up of corporate practices. We have been helping a number of companies defend charges in that space,” said Ahern.

In addition to this, Ahern expects litigation in Australia to continue to be an area of growth as a result of class actions, litigation funders and corporate disclosure responsibilities. “The increased focus on corporate continuous disclosure is also something that will continue to impact the space, particularly if funders are involved,” he added.