DAC to close HK and Brussels arms

DAVIES Arnold Cooper is to close its offices in Hong Kong and Brussels. Instead, the firm is to build links with local firms.

Partner Nicholas Bradley will work with an unnamed Belgian firm which employs 17 lawyers.

"We will be able to offer better services to clients in Belgium," says spokesman Hamish Munro.

"We will be working in European and Belgian law. We had been in negotiations for a number of firms before we took the decision."

The Belgian firm cannot be named until later this month when formalities have been completed. It was already linked with another firm at the time of going to press. Details of the new arrangements in Kong Kong should emerge by the middle of August.

But Munro says the moves are similar to Herbert Smith closing its New York office in favour of closer ties to a range of US firms.

"We have had a long look at our clients, listened to what they are saying and looked at what they are doing, and decided that it was no longer appropriate for us to have offices in either Hong Kong or Brussels.

"The Herbert Smith rearrangement in the US is broadly similar in principle to what we will be doing, but of course not similar in scale," says Munro.