The advent of the multinational corporation brings with it the need for multinational professional services firms. Following their existing customers, as well as looking to win new ones, law firms are increasingly moving into new and unfamiliar jurisdictions. In so doing, they must be equally as aware as their clients of the potential pitfalls that sit alongside the apparently glittering commercial opportunities offered by overseas expansion.
Recent global trends have only heightened the competitive pressure on law firms to expand their operations overseas. Two sources of this impetus have been recent spurts in cross-border M&A and joint venture activity and the emergence of aggressively expanding companies headquartered in – and increasingly affluent private customers hailing from – leading emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia and China. Unprecedented high commodity prices, and the movements they catalyse of firms into previously off-limits geographical regions, are also stoking law firms’ adventurism abroad. The growing regulatory and compliance burden governing the activities of corporations operating internationally, and the need for reliable, locally nuanced legal advice that accompanies it, is a further contributing element.
