The untidy end to the King & Wood Mallesons partnership this week provided yet another example of its biggest problem: the two firms were never really on the same page.
The Chinese-Australian firm had planned to announce the split before the end of the year, but its hand was forced just before 3pm AEDT on Tuesday.
The two parties — KWM China and KWM Australia — hadn't settled on a media release about the split. There were also internal memos from each side to accompany the release.
Then Law.com published a story at 2:57pm quoting an “internal notice” stating that KWM China and KWM Australia had “jointly agreed to terminate co-operation” from 31 March 2026.
