Top Dutch firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek is cutting formal ties with Linklaters in the wake of their failed Anglo-Dutch merger bid – including pulling out of Linklaters' European alliance.

The decision by De Brauw – which announced last Wednesday (10 April) that it had pulled out
of merger talks with its long-time UK ally – leaves Linklaters with a major hole in its European operations.

The Dutch firm had previously suspended merger talks with Linklaters last year, but remained in the alliance and restarted talks with the magic circle firm last November.

However, the second bid fell apart this month after De Brauw refused to cut its more domestically-focused practice areas to focus on corporate and banking work.

The firm last week announced that quitting Linklaters' alliance would result in a surge of referrals and allow De Brauw to work with "whichever law firm it wants".

De Brauw managing partner Jaap de Keijzer told Legal Week: "We do not want crucial practice areas like labour, administrative law or antitrust to become merely supports to M&A."

He added that there were also "grave" conflict of interest problems between the firms that would have "led to the impoverishment of our practice".

Linklaters' senior partner Anthony Cann said the firms shared "different visions" for the future.
He added: "In the short-term we will work with De Brauw, but in the long term we have not really decided what to do."

De Brauw joined Linklaters & Alliance in 1998 as part of Linklaters' bid to forge a pan-European firm.

Although Linklaters has secured mergers with the alliance's German, Swedish and Belgian member firms, its talks with De Brauw had been dragging on for more than a year and Italian member Gianni Origoni Grippo & Partners is opposed to integration in the short term.

Commenting on the move, Dutch legal experts said they believed that the increase in referrals and the relative size of the national market would allow De Brauw to continue independently.