Proskauer Rose has opened an office in Beijing, three years after the firm first declared its intention to launch in the city, reports The Am Law Daily.

The US firm announced last Thursday (10 November) that its thirteenth office, in Beijing's Chaoyang District, had officially opened for business.

The opening completes a push begun in 2008, when the firm expanded to Hong Kong with the addition of two partners from now-defunct Heller Ehrman's local office and the relocation of corporate partner Yuval Tal from New York. The Hong Kong base now counts 20 lawyers.

Tal said that securing the necessary licence from the Chinese government had been a drawn-out process.

Initially, about five lawyers from the Hong Kong office will relocate to Beijing, said Tal, who plans to split his time between the cities. Together, the two offices will focus on private equity, M&A and capital markets, with many of the clients drawn from Proskauer's work in the entertainment, sports and gaming industries.

"Every transaction we do is multilingual," Tal added. "It very often involves at least two, if not three jurisdictions, and very often two or three legal systems. It's a very, very exciting kind of practice."

Since arriving in Hong Kong, Tal has worked on several cross-border transactions, including representing Japanese real estate developer Mori Building in an investment in Hyatt Hotels, and Bessemer Venture Partners in its investment in Indian renewable energy company Orient Green Power.

Two other US firms recently announced plans to expand their respective presences in Asia – Perkins Coie, which opened an office in Taipei nearly a decade after pulling out of the Taiwanese capital, and O'Melveny & Myers, which entered an association agreement with Tumbuan & Partners in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The Am Law Daily is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.