Gide Loyrette Nouel's London office saw revenues fall 16% for the 2010 financial year, according to the firm's City limited liability partnership (LLP) filings.

The French firm's UK arm saw turnover fall from £9m to £7.6m for the year ending 31 December 2010, alongside a slight increase in gross profit, which rose by £19,000 to £3.7m.

The results come after the City base saw revenues fall by 51% from £18.3m to £9m in 2009.

Staff costs fell £1.9m to £3.5m as average staff numbers fell from 65 in 2009 to 50 in 2010, with the departures comprising nine lawyers, two paralegals and four administrative staff.

Total loss for the financial year before remuneration and profit shares was £1.8m, down on the £3.3m loss the firm reported for 2009.

London managing partner Colin Mercer (pictured) attributed the loss mainly to provisions made towards the firm's 'onerous lease' at 125 Old Broad Street, a building in which Gide leases three floors.

According to the accounts filed at Companies House, the firm made a provision of £1.4m towards the lease and received £524,115 for sub-letting space in the building.

He said: "Every year has its own challenges but I think 2010 was a better year for us. We considerably reduced our headline losses – which is a very good result – and our strategy to broaden our focus into other practice areas such as dispute resolution is starting to feed through to our bottom line."

He added: "There is still a lot of uncertainty in the market but our 2011 results will be better than last year. We have our costs under control and, while the market remains patchy, we are moving in the right direction."

Gide, which opened in London in 2003 with the hire of four partners from US firm Sidley Austin, saw a number of departures last year, including finance partners Michael Doran and Chris Czarnocki, who joined White & Case in May 2010.