Linklaters is to launch a disputes practice in Singapore as contentious work in Asia continues to surge.

The magic circle firm, which was awarded a local practising licence in Singapore last year along with Jones Day, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Sidley Austin, is relocating financial litigation partner Jelita Pandjaitan from Hong Kong, bringing the total number of partners in Singapore to nine.

It currently has eight partners in the Singapore office.

Pandjaitan will be joined by two associates who are Singapore qualified, giving the firm a full investigations capability for South East Asia and India covering financial regulatory issues, fraud, misconduct, bribery and corruption – in addition to arbitration, litigation management and assistance with transactional or restructuring and insolvency matters.

Until recently Linklaters had been covering Asia disputes from its hub office in Hong Kong, and by a four-partner team which includes Asia managing partner Marc Harvey, head of disputes for the region Melvin Sng and former Herbert Smith Freehills litigator Gavin Lewis.

Sng said the decision to add a disputes capability in Singapore was in response to increased client demand for support, as well as firmwide objectives to ramp up the portion of revenues generated by contentious work. Currently around 15% of revenues come from disputes, while the aim is to get this to approximately one third globally.

"This will provide the firm with the ability to provide full coverage of the Asia Pacific region," he told Legal Week. "Our global strategic objective is to have dispute resolution as a core part of the firm's offering, along-side corporate and finance, and a key contributor to the firm's revenue. We will therefore be looking to increase the size of our teams in Hong Kong and Singapore in order to achieve that objective."

International firms have long been building their disputes capabilities in Asia, and particularly in the last two years amid a rise in local litigation and regional investigations of banks and global corporates.

As well as adding FCPA and arbitration lawyers, many have sought to launch local practices in regions such as Hong Kong, or to offer disputes services indirectly in restricted jurisdictions such as China, Singapore and Korea through local tie up arrangements.

In December 2012 Davis Polk & Wardwell became one of the first US firms to launch a truly local litigation practice in Hong Kong with the hire of Clifford Chance (CC) partner Martin Rogers, while that same month, CC added litigation capacity in Singapore through an exclusive alliance with boutique disputes outfit Cavenagh Law.

Litigation specialists such as Kobre & Kim and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, have also sought to expand in the region.