Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson is set to close its Hong Kong and Shanghai offices, with the US firm announcing plans to shut down the bases by 30 June.

Employees at both offices are in discussions about possible relocations after chairman David Greenwald visited the region last week to tell staff about the planned closures. Fried Frank currently has four partners, eight associates, two of counsel and 18 staff in Hong Kong, while its Shanghai outpost has one permanent member of staff.

The firm is considering keeping some kind of service centre in Hong Kong as well as its China licence to practise.

"You can be assured that the decision to reduce our commitment in this region was not taken lightly, particularly since we continue to believe in the long term prospects of Asia," Greenwald wrote in an internal memo to staff.

"However, after reviewing our overall performance in this region and the current opportunities, we concluded that our growth potential in Asia was not sufficiently attractive from a commercial perspective without significant additional investment, and the governance committee determined that it is not the time to increase our investment in this region."

News of the closures comes after Legal Week reported in 2013 that Fried Frank was significantly downsizing in the region, roughly halving its previous 12,000 sq ft of office space in Hong Kong amid a number of departures.

At that time Victoria Lloyd, who had joined in 2007 from Simmons & Simmons, left for Ropes & Gray, while corporate partner Joshua Wechsler moved from the firm's Hong Kong office to New York. 

In March last year, Fried Frank made up one partner in Hong Kong, litigation lawyer Alfred Wu. The firm's three other partners in the city are all corporate specialists: Doug Freeman, Victor Chen and Carolyn Sng.