As hopes for Indian legal market liberalisation in the near term fade, Clifford Chance has downgraded its ‘best friends' relationship with AZB to ‘good friends’ this month in a bid to spread its India eggs across a variety of baskets.

Magic circle firm Clifford Chance is set to expand its Middle East offering with a third office in the region, to be launched as soon as its license approval is received.

Sustained investment and financial growth in the Saudi economy is behind Jones Day’s unprecedented decision to launch three new offices (Riyadh, Jeddah and Alkhobar) in the Kingdom, said the firm’s Europe/Middle East partner-in-charge Mary Ellen Powers.

WongPartnership has acquired a three-partner boutique funds practice, and in a separate senior hire, appointed shipping veteran Ian Koh from local rival Drew & Napier to spearhead its new shipping & international trade practice.

A group of four lawyers from US firm Howrey have launched the Taipei office of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton—the firm’s second office in Asia.

Clifford Chance has promoted three additional senior lawyers to 10 others currently in the position of counsel/consultant. The promotions were made in the firm’s Tokyo and Singapore offices.

Norton Rose, Minter Ellison and Allen & Gledhill have advised on the loan facilities granted to fund the acquisition of Australian sugar producer Sucrogen (formerly CSR's sugar and renewable energy business) by Wilmar International, one of the largest listed companies by market capitalisation on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

US-based firm Jones Day has promoted 36 lawyers to its global partnership this week, a third of whom are in offices outside the US and a quarter of whom are female. Those promoted include Joe Bauerschmidt in Singapore, John Lin in Taipei and Sebastien Evrard and Ian Lian both in Beijing.

Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu has beefed up its numbers with another hefty batch of recruits as it looks beyond Japan in a global strategy that foreruns other Japanese firms.

A wave of new maritime companies locating their head offices on Singapore’s shores – in addition to the republic’s growing reputation as the “go-to” destination for arbitrations – has raised expectations of significant growth in the shipping sector for 2011.