Clyde & Co is facing a partner walkout in Hong Kong as all seven legacy Barlow Lyde & Gilbert partners exit the firm's local arm to join a trio of UK rivals.

Hong Kong senior partner David Smyth, marine insurance partner Andrew Horton, insurance partner Antony Sassi and disputes partner Gary Yin are all set to join Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC), with the firm understood to be opening an office in the region with the new hires.

Meanwhile, corporate partner Padraig Walsh and disputes partner Richard Keady will join Bird & Bird's local office, with disputes partner Tom Fyfe set to move to Simmons & Simmons in Hong Kong.

All seven have special deals in place with Clydes that mean they will not be subject to the post-merger exit penalties set out when Clydes and Barlows merged last November.

Under the terms of the merger, legacy Barlows equity partners opting to leave the combined firm in the three years after the tie-up are required to pay between roughly £30,000 at the junior end through to £60,000 at the top for each year of the lock-in they do not serve at the newly-merged firm.

However, prior to the merger the Hong Kong partners negotiated a deal that meant they would not be subject to the lock-in if they resigned from the firm by the close of March this year.

The departures comprise the entire partnership from the legacy Barlows Hong Kong office, and represent almost half of the partners in Clydes' post-merger Hong Kong arm, which has a total of 15 partners.

In a statement, Clydes said: "As part of the merger agreement a transitional period expiring at the end of March 2012 was agreed with the legacy BLG partners in their Hong Kong office. In the event, they have decided to pursue their careers elsewhere and we wish them well."

The hires for RPC come after the insurance firm opened its first international office in Singapore in November last year with the hire of Barlows' former local insurance and reinsurance chief Mark Errington.

Bird & Bird is also currently moving to build up its presence in Asia, with the latest hires taking the firm's total number of new partners in the region so far this year to seven, including four in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Simmons has also been investing heavily in the region in 2012 with four partner hires including Fyfe to date. The UK top 15 firm has four offices in Asia in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.