Australia's Minter Ellison has continued to rebuild in Perth with the hire of competition partner Matthew Knox from Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Knox, whose practice has a focus on the energy and resources sector, joins  Perth's nine-partner office, which in 2011 saw the departure of around 80 lawyers – including 14 partners – to Squire Sanders. The firm subsequently relaunched in the western Australian city.

Knox also previously worked at Mallesons Stephen Jacques in Sydney.

Perth managing partner Andrew Cunningham said: "Matthew's appointment will be another step toward realising our strategy for our integrated Perth office, with its focus on energy and resources, infrastructure and project development, financial services and strategic inbound investment.

"Access to existing and planned infrastructure is a key issue in Western Australia, particularly in connection with ports and rail, where access is a cornerstone to getting projects off the ground."

Minters is one of the two big six Australian firms which remains independent, but counts itself as among the wave of international players looking to increase its footprint and capabilities across Asia-Pacific.

In November, it strengthened its finance practice in Sydney with the hire King & Wood Mallesons partner James Mok, and at the end of last year was one of the few domestic outfits which did not announce redundancies amid turbulent market conditions.

In addition to its Australian network of offices, the Sydney-headquartered firm currently has bases in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, and in February last year opened an office in Mongolia to capture a slice of the country's energy and resources work.

The firm's leaders have previously said they would not rule out a merger with a foreign player.