Two of Scotland’s biggest remaining independent law firms have failed to quash rumours they are in late-stage merger talks.

MacRoberts and Morton Fraser together employ more than 400 people in offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and a MacRoberts office in Dundee. It is reported a tieup would produce a firm with total income of £38m, the sixth-largest north of the border.

In a statement, MacRoberts said: 'At any point we are in conversation with a number of individuals, teams and firms and it would be inappropriate to make any comment on the existence or otherwise of such conversions.’

Morton Fraser said it ‘doesn’t comment on speculation’.

A number of Scotland’s biggest legal names have disappeared in recent years, partly through cross-border tieups. They include erstwhile ‘big two’ McGrigors and Dundas & Wilson.

Earlier this year merger talks between Maclay Murray & Spens and Addleshaw Goddard are understood to have been called off.