King & Wood Mallesons
| King & Wood Mallesons | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Association under Swiss law |
| founding | 2012 (after the merger) |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
| management | Wang Junfeng |
| Number of locations | 28 |
| Number of employees | over 2400 lawyers and tax advisors |
| sales | approx. USD 1 billion (2014) |
| Branch | Legal advice, tax advice |
| website | www.kwm.com |
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is an international law firm with more than 2,400 lawyers in 28 offices in Europe and mainly in China , Hong Kong and Australia . The law firm was initially formed through the merger of King & Wood and Mallesons Stephen Jacques in 2012. In 2013, SJ Berwin joined.
The German office based in Frankfurt am Main merged in November 2017 with the law firm RoosLegal, which specializes in corporate transactions.
history
After the Chinese law firm King & Wood PRC Lawyers and the Australian law firm Mallesons Stephens Jacques merged to form King & Wood Mallesons in 2012, this newly created entity merged again with the European law firm SJ Berwin in 2013. The resulting unit has since acted globally as King & Wood Mallesons. It is structured as an association under Swiss law.
Malleson's Stephen Jaques
Malleson's Stephen Jaques was one of the six largest law firms in Australia. The name “Mallesons” comes from one of the founding partners, Alfred Brooks Malleson, a native of London, who emigrated to Melbourne in 1856. The origin of the name component "Stephen" goes back to Montague Stephen, the founder of the firm in Sydney (1849), and the name component "Jaques" comes from Alfred Jaques, who became a partner in this firm in 1878.
At the time of the merger, Stephen Jaques Stone James and Mallesons employed a total of 450 lawyers advising from offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Canberra. The last Australian location followed in Brisbane in 1989. The first Asian locations opened in Hong Kong (1989) and Beijing (1993).
King & Wood PRC Lawyers
King & Wood PRC Lawyers was one of the first law firms in the People's Republic of China. Until 1993, the King & Wood founding partners worked in the framework of the Chinese Council for the Promotion of International Trade until the central government was allowed to set up private law firms.
SJ Berwin and KWM Europe
SJ Berwin was founded in 1982 by lawyer Stanley J. Berwin and other lawyers in London and has developed into an international law firm with 160 partners in several European locations. In 2009 the firm opened non-European offices in Hong Kong, Dubai and Shanghai. The law firm, which last acted as King & Wood Mallesons LLP, filed for bankruptcy in 2017 and is no longer operational. The Asian-Pacific companies of the network, which despite the merger had remained financially and legally independent of SJ Berwin, were not affected by these events. A new presence was therefore established in Europe with the support of the Chinese unit, which is now represented with locations in Brussels, Frankfurt, Madrid, London and Milan as well as in Dubai.
Locations
KWM has 28 offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.