WongPartnership and Malaysian practice Foong & Partners are  planning to pitch and market together as much as possible under the local laws, having agreed to form an alliance.They are expecting considerable inward investment by multinationals as Malaysia opens up. Big Four firm WongPartnership and corporate boutique Foong are looking to dominate the ASEAN area although the main focus will be Malaysia where deals deals are increasingly cross-Asean. 

Closer relationship

Alvin Yeo, senior partner at WongPartnership,  said that due to the closer economic relationship between Singapore and Malaysia, there were an increasing number of cross-border deals which the two had been working on. He added that having acted  alongside Foong & Partners on some of these transactions, including Tune Ins Holdings Bhd's recent initial public offering, 'we found a shared ethos of delivering unstinting high quality service to out clients.' The tie up would enable the firm 'to leverage on their Malaysian law capability to serve our clients in the ASEAN region and allow their Malaysian clients access to our reguinal experience in China, the Middle East and the rest of ASEAN,' he said.

Increase in investment

Foong Chee Meng, managing partner at Foong & Partners, said that the increase in investment interest in Malaysia would benefit from the complementary skills which the firms offered.  WongPartnership has over 270 lawyers across Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Doha and Shanghai whilst Foong & Partners is based in Kuala Lumpur.