Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC) is to relocate financial services litigator Jonathan Cary from London to Hong Kong to tap a growth in banking regulation work in the region.

Cary, who joined RPC at the beginning of 2013 from Shearman & Sterling and previously worked with Herbert Smith, will be the first banking litigation partner on the team and bring the total number of Hong Kong partners to seven.

He has experience handling both financial and general commercial litigation, and earlier in his career worked in Hong Kong for three years acting for clients involved in investigations by the SFC and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

"Ultimately we want to mirror the services we provide in the UK in Hong Kong," said office head and the firm's senior partner for Asia, David Smyth.

"In London we've seen a lot of referral work from other law firms – in situations where the firms can't represent clients due to legal or mostly commercial conflict reasons, for example, they may not be able to act against the big banks. We have very few conflicts, and so that's been very successful with the increased regulatory activity."

RPC opened in Hong Kong in 2012 in association with local firm Smyth & Co – which was set up by Smyth following his departure from Clyde & Co in Hong Kong.

Litigation and arbitration have been the core focus for the office, making up about 80% of the work.

It currently has two partners there focusing primarily on disputes; three with Cary's arrival, in addition to two partners who do marine work, one who specialises in insurance and one who covers general corporate and commercial matters.

The firm has also been gradually building its Singapore office, last month relocating legal director and ex-Mayer Brown lawyer Geraldine Bourke to the city-state to grow its financial lines practice in South East Asia and enhance its non-marine insurance offering.

The Singapore office was launched in 2011, just a year before Hong Kong.