PwC has launched a Hong Kong legal practice with hires from King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) and O'Melveny & Myers.

The move has involved the establishment of a new independent Hong Kong firm, Tiang & Co, which has entered into an association with PwC's Singapore-licensed foreign law practice, PwC Legal International.

Tiang & Co is led by former KWM Beijing partner David Tiang, who is joined at the new firm by former O'Melveny & Myers Hong Kong capital markets partner Gigi Woo and O'Melveny counsel Joyce Tung. It will focus on M&A – including both inbound and outbound deals – business reorganisations, regulatory and general corporate and commercial work.

Tiang, who specialises in corporate governance, risk management and compliance, joined KWM in 2012, not long after the union of King & Wood and Mallesons Stephen Jaques in March that year. Prior to that, he spent four years as China general counsel for Walmart, and also previously worked as an Asia-based in-house lawyer at General Electric.

Woo, meanwhile, joined O'Melveny in 2012 from Standard Chartered Bank, where she oversaw legal matters for the bank's capital markets unit. Before that, she held in-house roles at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. In 2015, she represented Chinese drugmaker Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology on a $302m (£248m) listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

PwC Legal International was launched last December as a Singapore foreign law practice, working in tandem with the auditor's affiliated Singapore law firm Camford Law.

Global legal services leader Leon Flavell relocated from London to Singapore last year to lead PwC's expansion in the region, and the firm subsequently recruited Norton Rose Fulbright Singapore real estate partner Natalie Breen and former Ashurst Singapore managing partner Keith McGuire late last year. The Singapore team was boosted further by the addition of Taylor Vinters Asia head Henry Goodwin, who joined last month.

PwC did not respond to requests for comment.