Mallesons Stephen Jaques and Chinese giant King & Wood are set to vote on a potential tie-up this week as groundbreaking talks between the two firms continue.

Mallesons partners will vote on the deal on Wednesday (23 November), with partners at King & Wood also expected to vote on the union this week. The Australian firm needs a majority vote of 75% in order to push ahead with the proposed tie-up.

If partners back the union, the two firms, which are prevented from entering into a full merger by Chinese regulatory constraints, will combine under a Swiss verein structure in the first quarter of next year. Full details of the level of integration are unclear, however the verein structure would allow the firms to maintain separate profit pools while operating under a single brand name and centralising back office functions.

The new venture is expected to rebrand under a banner that is likely to include parts of both firms' existing names.

The planned union comes as part of a wider strategic plan at Mallesons to tie up with both a US and UK firm at some stage in the future to create a global leader.

One Mallesons partner said: "We have been quite clear and public about the fact that we wanted an international network and that we want to globalise the firm and there is no doubt that we have been talking to UK and US firms because we do want a tie-up ultimately some time in the future."

Talks between the pair first emerged in July this year, with broad support for the tie-up given by Mallesons' partners at a meeting in September 2011.

Profits per equity partner (PEP) at Mallesons are understood to be higher than that of King & Wood. In 2009-10 Mallesons' average PEP stood at A$1.2m (£750,000), while according to The Australian Financial Review, the firm's best-paid partners received as much as A$1.9m (£1.2m) for 2010-11.

Mallesons currently has around 1,000 legal staff working across nine offices, including four outside Australia in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and London.

King & Wood, which until recently had an existing strategic alliance with Australia's Gilbert + Tobin, has around 950 legal staff across 13 offices in China, New York, Tokyo and Palo Alto.

News of the tie-up comes as growing numbers of UK firms have been entering the Australian market. Ashurst and Australia's Blake Dawson finalised terms of their tie-up, which is expected to lead to a merger in around three years, in September this year, while Norton Rose, Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance have all entered the market in the last two years.

• Click here for more coverage of the discussions between Mallesons and King & Wood.