Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has said it currently has no plans to follow its competitors by opening in either Australia or Korea.

The magic circle outfit told Legal Week it will instead continue to service clients from its existing Asia bases in Hong Kong and Singapore, while working with local firms on the ground.

The decision not to open in Australia follows reports last year that the firm had spoken to partners at firms such as Allens, King & Wood Mallesons and Herbert Smith Freehills with a view to potentially launching offices in Sydney and Perth.

"(With regards to) Australia, there's been a great rush into it. It's a very well lawyered market, [and] clients are very well serviced by international firms and strong domestic firms" said Rob Ashworth (pictured), the firm's regional managing partner.

"Our approach has been to work closely with a number of the firms that we have relationships with and service clients through an onshore/offshore capability and we don't see that approach changing."

Opening in Korea is also not on the agenda for Freshfields, despite seeing 19 foreign firms open in the country over the last 18 months, including magic circle rivals Clifford Chance and Linklaters.

"We have a Korean capability which we run out of Hong Kong, [and] we use that capability to focus on cross border Korean work which is principally outbound," Ashworth said.

"Korea is an important economy and we pay a lot of attention to it but I do not anticipate that we will change our approach."

As for the year ahead in Asia, Ashworth said the firm is expecting an increase in Asia revenues as it looks to build out in specialist practice areas and ramp up in Singapore.

Freshfields has traditionally been best known in Asia for Greater China corporate work, but the firm wants to increase its capability in areas such as antitrust and financial investigations while adding depth in the South East Asian financial hub, where it launched two years ago.

"We had a sluggish start but a very strong end to last year. And that was largely market driven," continued Ashworth. "We hope that 2015 will be an even better year than 2014. We are a strong corporate business at our core, but we recognise that it's important to be able to offer clients a broader service both in terms of products and markets. So strengthening our finance practice, our antitrust capability and continuing to build out our dispute resolution capability [across the region] are what we are trying to do."

On the antitrust side, the firm appointed Clifford Chance competition lawyer Ninette Dodoo as a counsel in its Beijing office in November last year, making her deputy head of its antitrust, competition and trade practice for China.

For disputes it relocated global co-head of arbitration Lucy Reed from New York to Hong Kong in May 2012, and last year hired Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) financial services regulatory partner in Hong Kong Tim Mak.

"[Disputes] is an area that is clearly growing globally," Ashworth added. "It's becoming more difficult to be a regulated entity these days. The areas that we will pay particular attention to are disputes and investigations, particularly issues around anti-bribery and corruption, sanction and regulation."

In a bid to grow its offering in South East Asia, Freshfields re-opened in Singapore in September 2012, more than five years after it closed its former office there.

The firm is currently focused on cross-border corporate and finance deals and arbitration, but may consider applying for a Qualifying Law Practice Licence (QFLP) or local licence in the future.

Last year it also hired Linklaters capital markets partner Arun Balasubramanian to co-head its India practice from the city, bringing the number of partners on the ground to three.

"Cross border work is our focus. I think it is unlikely we would look at an alliance with a Singapore firm. There are QFLP licences – when the next round comes we will consider that," Ashworth said.

"We are likely to develop more on the arbitration front. It's possible as countries adopt antitrust regulations and competition laws – and we're starting to see that in Malaysia – that we will over time want to have people on the ground in Singapore that do antitrust work."

He added that the firm would review opportunities in the wider region, where it has two other offices located in Vietnam.

"South East Asia as a whole is very active. We do explore other markets from time to time to see whether it makes sense. A number of our competitors have alliances with firms in Indonesia, some are opening in Myanmar. But we would need to test the waters from a client demand perspective."