Dentons combines with Vietnamese law firm LuatViet

GLOBAL law firm Dentons on Tuesday announced a merger with LuatViet, a domestic firm in Vietnam known for its corporate dispute resolution practice.

With the addition of LuatViet's offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Dentons will now have a presence in six Asean cities.

Dentons' global chief executive Elliott Portnoy said Vietnam, as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, is a "priority market" for its clients. "Combining with LuatViet, with whom we have years of significant collaboration, will allow us to connect clients to leading talent in Vietnam and to more than 20,000 professionals across the globe," he said.

Dentons currently has a "significant number" of clients that operate in Vietnam across multiple practices and sectors, including manufacturing, construction and finance, said Denton's global chairman Joe Andrew.

Andrew said this combination is part of the firm's "polycentric" approach, referring to the firm's diversity in terms of geography, language and nationalities.

LuatViet has three partners and some 30 lawyers.

Dentons, which has pursued an aggressive growth strategy in the recent years, accounted for a significant portion of combination activity in 2020. Thus far in 2021, it has launched combinations with firms in the United States, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ecuador and Bolivia.

It now has 207 offices in 82 countries around the world and has 12,000 lawyers globally.

In Singapore, Dentons combined with Singapore-based firm Rodyk in April 2016 to form Dentons Rodyk.