Top Paris firm Gide Loyrette Nouel has won the job of advising the Chinese Government before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a vital battle over US steel tariffs.

The win hands the French firm a high-profile job in one of the world's fastest growing economies and increasingly important legal markets.

Gide began acting for the Chinese Government at the end of October with the firm's WTO team being led by Brussels-based lawyer Olivier Prost. The case will be heard by the WTO's panel secretariat where China will claim that it should be exempted from the tariffs. Unusually for a French firm, Gide has maintained a major presence in China, having opened its Beijing base in 1987, and now has four partners and 27 lawyers in the office.

The US decision to impose 30% tariffs on steel imports in March has created international uproar and thrown the WTO's dispute resolution procedure into the spotlight. China's case is the latest in a wave of representations against the tariffs by a host of countries including Japan, Korea, Norway, Brazil, Switzerland, New Zealand and the European Union (EU).

China was only formally admitted to the WTO last year, in a move that has sparked a wave of law firm investment in the country.