We’ve a lot of APAC news to cover today, with stories involving Bird & Bird in Australian merger + HighQ opening an Australian data centre + Lexis Interaction going into ASEAN law firm DFDL + CPA opening a new office in Taiwan.
• We start with the news that international law firm Bird & Bird just announced a merger with Sydney based firm Truman Hoyle. The merger will go live on 3 November 2014, bringing the number of Bird & Bird offices around the world to 27. The merger with Truman Hoyle follows a successful cooperation agreement which the two firms entered into in March 2013. The new Australia office will be run by Shane Barber, the current managing partner of Truman Hoyle. On the day of the merger the total headcount in Bird & Bird Australia will be 42, comprising 25 fee earners and 8 partners.
Bird & Bird already has offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. Over the last 18 months the firm has experienced a period of rapid growth in the region with a series of strategic cooperation agreements which have included Hwang Mok Park in Korea in March 2014, and K&K Advocates and Nurjadin Sumono Mulyadi & Partners in Indonesia in June 2014, and now the successful transition from a cooperation with Truman Hoyle in March 2013 to full merger in November 2014. In addition to our geographical expansion the firm has also appointed a series of new senior lateral hires to its regional practice which has included corporate partner Padraig Walsh and TMT partner Michelle Chan in Hong Kong, corporate partner Sven-Michael Werner, employment partner Ying Wang in Shanghai, and aviation partner Leo Fattorini in Singapore.
• HighQ Addresses Data Sovereignty and Security Concerns, Announces Australia Data Center – As global traction for its secure file sharing and enterprise collaboration platform continues to grow, HighQ is opening a new data center in Australia. The company’s fifth global data center— with existing locations in the US, UK, Channel Islands and UAE—comes as privacy, security and data sovereignty concerns heat up global demand for cloud-based enterprise collaboration and file sharing platforms with flexible hosting options. Featuring a single-tenancy, private cloud architecture as well as ISO 27001 certification and separate HighQ corporations in the US and the UK, HighQ is designed to serve the most advanced enterprise compliance needs.
“We’ve built HighQ from the ground up as a specialist provider for highly regulated industries that rely on confidential communication and transactions,” said HighQ CEO Ajay Patel. “Over the years, our legal, banking and other corporate customers have given us ongoing feedback to help us architect the ideal platform for all of their secure file sharing, team collaboration, project management, transaction management and enterprise social needs. Our new Australia data center, as well as the upcoming centers in Germany and Canada, enable our clients to meet the most stringent security and compliance requirements.”
With features including secure file sharing, transaction management, enterprise social collaboration and project management, HighQ is designed for enterprise-grade privacy and security:
• Single-tenancy, private cloud. Single-tenant, private cloud deployments provide each company with their own instance of the application, so they have greater visibility and control than with typical multi-tenancy, public cloud systems. Their data is kept segregated and they have compete control over the configuration of their instance, including when it is upgraded.
• Legally separate business entities. HighQ, Inc. is the company’s independent US business entity, while HighQ Solutions, Ltd., based in London, serves the company’s global, non-US customer base. This ensures that the Patriot Act doesn’t affect HighQ’s customers outside of the US and avoids situations like the recent ruling on Microsoft Ireland.
• Data centers in five global locations. HighQ offers hosting in data centers in the US, UK, Channel Islands, UAE and Australia. Data centers in Germany and Canada are forthcoming.
• New Lexis InterAction Win – Leading ASEAN law & tax firm DFDL, ranked tier 1 for general business law by Chambers Asia, has deployed CRM solution Lexis InterAction from LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions. InterAction is the focal point for all contact-related information and provides authoritative relationship intelligence for business development across the firm’s network of offices in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Over 250 employees including fee earners and support staff are using the solution. DFDL says it chose InterAction for its superior functionality and LexisNexis’ successful track record of implementing the solution in professional services organisations of all sizes and complexities.
“InterAction is an essential part of our commitment to client development and continued provision of world class legal advice and service to our clients across the region,” commented Michel Dauguet, CEO, DFDL. “We looked at a number of software solutions to support our CRM effort, but InterAction best fit the bill. It offers the depth and breadth of functionality, but at the same time is easy and intuitive to use. Now as an organisation we are able to leverage the combined network of all our offices for business advantage and for the benefit of our customers. It is a powerful capability.”
• CPA in Taiwan – CPA Global, the world’s leading specialist in intellectual property (IP) management software and services, has further strengthened its presence in Asia Pacific with the opening of an office in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei. The move will enable CPA Global to better serve its growing number of corporate and law firm clients in Taiwan, and to help meet the increasing demand for IP management software and services in this key innovation market, and more broadly across the Asia Pacific region. Located in the landmark Taipei 101 tower in the city’s Xinyi central business district, the new office provides local client service and sales support, backed by the full resources of CPA Global’s Asia Pacific regional headquarters in Hong Kong as well as the Company’s extensive worldwide operations.
In addition to Taipei and Hong Kong, CPA Global’s Asia Pacific offices include Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Sydney and Noida (New Delhi); and the Company plans to open an office in Beijing shortly. Commenting on the importance of the Taiwanese market, Marcos Antunes, CPA Global’s General Manager, Asia Pacific, said: “Taiwan is a market of tremendous innovation and home to some of the world’s most progressive, forward-thinking organizations, who need to manage and protect their IP rights locally, regionally and internationally. As a result, we are seeing increasing demand for high quality IP management services and software, both from law firms and from the corporate clients they serve.”