Allen & Overy’s former Greater China senior partner Joseph Tse has joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a senior advisor following the accountancy giant’s launch of its legal services in mainland China.

Tse’s move to PwC Legal China comes a few months after his retirement from Allen & Overy in April 2015, where he had spent 21 years as a partner with the last six years as senior partner of Greater China.

In his new role as a senior advisor, Tse works closely with the 30-lawyer team of PwC Legal China, which consists of two newly-established PRC firms Beijing Rui Bai and Shanghai Xin Bai. His role spans China and Hong Kong, where PwC is also considering adding local law capability in the future.

“His credentials and expertise as a leader clearly speak for themselves and we can certainly learn from his experience in leading the highest-quality lawyers across the China market,” said a PwC spokesperson in Hong Kong.

The accountancy firm launched its legal services in mainland China at the beginning of this year, by adding the two Chinese firms into its global legal services network and branding them as PwC Legal China.

The two firms were set up by a team of three partners from leading local firm Broad & Bright, with the specific purpose to become part of the PwC Legal network. The legal services teams, although remaining structurally independent from PwC China due to regulatory reasons, are co-located with PwC’s Beijing and Shanghai offices, working closely with PwC’s tax department in China led by Spencer Chong.

In Beijing, PwC Legal China is led by office managing partner Jenny Zhong and in Shanghai by local managing partner Xiong Tao. Zhong, Xiong and the third Chinese partner Catherine Shen, were all partners of Broad & Bright.

The only foreign partner is Craig Stevenson, who relocated to Shanghai last year from PwC’s Dubai office to oversee the launch of PwC Legal China and its integration with the rest of the network. Stevenson was previously a partner at PwC Legal’s London office for over six years and before that worked at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

PwC’s spokesperson told The Lawyer the firm had no specific growth targets but that the legal services arm in China was aiming for strong year-on-year growth. The spokesperson added there was the possibility of extending services to Hong Kong in the future.

“In the course of our PRC legal work we are often asked by clients to assist on related matters of HK law. Many of our clients would value PwC Legal’s ability to provide a seamless China and HK legal service offering,” said the spokesperson.

“But our priority was the PRC market and now we have successfully established practices in Beijing and Shanghai, it is a natural extension to consider a potential Hong Kong offering at some point in the future, but no decisions have yet been taken,” she added.

PwC is the third “big four” accountancy firm to have tapped into the Chinese legal market through a similar structure. Ernst & Young (EY) added established Shanghai firm Chen & Co into its global legal services network in 2014, while Deloitte absorbed new Shanghai law firm Qin Li into its global network in 2013.

In October 2015, EY added Hong Kong law capability by admitting Hong Kong firm Lin & Associates as a member of its global law network.