Denton Wilde Sapte chairman James Dallas told the Gazette this week that he hopes and expects that the firm's dissolution of its Asian offices will be accepted by the partnership when it meets to decide on the issue next week.

The strategy to close the firm's Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo offices - leaving around 50 lawyers including 12 partners with an uncertain future - was recommended by the firm's management board last week and communicated as a fait accompli.

It will go to the full partnership vote next week.

Sources close to the firm were surprised that the decision was communicated publicly before the full vote.

Mr Dallas said: 'I very much hope and expect that the strategy will be backed by the partnership.

But these are internal matters.'

The decision followed an 18-month internal review.

Mr Dallas said in future the firm would concentrate on the energy, infrastructure, transport, financial services, real estate, technology, media and telecommunications sectors.

He added: 'After detailed study and despite excellent work done in our Asian offices, we have concluded that we should withdraw from Asia and direct more resources to areas with stronger client demand, including Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.'

He said those regions had doubled their turnover in the past three years and that - with the extra resources that would flow from the closure of the Asian offices - he expected further growth there.

The firm said it hoped to redeploy as many staff as possible throughout the firm's international network.

A source close to the firm's Asian offices said the news would have been 'easier to bear' if it had come at the depth of the economic depression in Asia three years ago, or following the recent SARS virus scare.

He said: 'Things are just picking up.

This is a silly strategy.'

Last year, Dentons announced 70 redundancies in its London office (see [2003] Gazette, 9 May, 4).

In January 2003, City firm CMS Cameron McKenna pulled out of its Beijing office, but - unlike Dentons kept a small insurance presence in Hong Kong.

See [2004] Gazette, 16 April, page 11

Jeremy Fleming