The prolonged collapse of leading global shipping law firm Ince Gordon Dadds and its parent the Ince Group has left its East Asia branches and allies in turmoil.
Today’s announcement that the London-listed Ince Group along with subsidiary law firm Ince Gordon Dadds is in administration is complicating the situation, but not equally for all offices.
One former Ince ally, Singapore-based firm Incisive Law, is unaffected and has quietly lived a separate existence from Ince for some time already and said it is set for further growth.
In Hong Kong, the Ince partnership is expected by some observers to sail on separately as well.
Meanwhile, across East Asia the status of the global firm’s operations varies, and the legal form of incorporation of some branches and affiliates may shield them from the problems of the London-based group.
TradeWinds has already reported that the troubled corporate-owned law firm has entered administration as restructuring advisor Quantuma seeks new buyers. Trading in London-listed Ince had already been suspended since January after repeated failures to present annual accounts for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2022.
The suspension and now the administration is the culmination of years of turmoil at the formerly leading global shipping law firm, which has seen a series of defections, including the recent departures of global head of shipping Julian Clark and senior partners Christian Dwyer and James Drummond.
In the Greater China region, Ince’s Shanghai and Beijing branches are directly owned by the Ince Group. But in Hong Kong, the Ince-labelled partnership is outside the London umbrella, and owned by local partners as Hong Kong law requires.
It was not immediately possible to reach the global firm’s Shanghai branch, headed by Paul Ho, who is also head of Ince’s Greater China operations.
The Beijing branch is already effectively shut down for new business and Ince has informed Beijing authorities that it will cease trading by the end of April.
But the Ince Hong Kong office remains a separate partnership from the Ince Group-owned Ince Gordon Dadds.
“I would imagine that Ince Hong Kong would carry on because they are a separate and profitable entity, and what happens to the Ince Group does not happen to them as such,” one observer with knowledge of the situation told TradeWinds.
In Singapore, representatives of the law firm Incisive Law, formerly a “formal law ally” of Ince under Singapore regulations, confirmed that it had maintained its independence and is sailing on unaffected.
Wai Yue Loh, who is joint managing director of Incisive alongside Bill Ricquier, confirmed to TradeWinds that Incisive has been fully independent of Ince for some time and will be unaffected by the latest developments.
Incisive was set up as the Singapore side in a “formal law alliance” with a former entity called Ince & Co Singapore. Such an arrangement allows global legal firms to serve legal clients in the city-state without violating Singapore law.
But Ince & Co Singapore ceased trading in the wake of the 2018 restructuring of the former global Ince & Co law firm. After a corporate buyout, Ince became part of a London-listed group with the non-shipping Gordon Dadds law firm, and the Singapore branch was lost in the shuffle, with some of its personnel migrating to Incisive.
But with Ince & Co Singapore no longer trading, Singapore officials ruled that Ince no longer had an entity with a presence there that Incisive could partner, said Loh.
In some public statements, Ince continued to mention Incisive as if it remained an Ince affiliate.
Shutting down Beijing
Loh has been a linchpin of Ince’s Asian operations in Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China, where he set up Ince’s Beijing office.
Loh confirmed to TradeWinds that that office, which he still formally heads, had ceased taking on any new business as of the end of March.
He added that he has resigned from the Hong Kong Ince operation, where he was one of eight equity partners.
Meanwhile, Incisive has continued under its Ince-related name despite the breakdown of the “formal law alliance” with Ince.
“We have just been too busy to change it,” said Loh, who added that the growing Incisive firm will be moving offices in June.
