Rosling King (“RK”), the City of London-based law firm, has today announced a major expansion of its dispute resolution and litigation services through a merger with Lax & Co, which specialises in shipping and international trade disputes.

The merger has taken effect this week and the combined practice will operate as RK.

RK is a long-standing City of London firm serving the needs of commercial clients operating predominantly in the finance, real estate, construction and private equity sectors.

Founded in 2007, Lax & Co LLP provides legal advice on a wide range of shipping related issues, including charterparty and contract of carriage disputes, ship building disputes (in particular, cruise ships), ship sale and purchase, sale of goods, salvage and casualty matters.

Georgina Squire, senior partner and head of litigation at RK, said: “We are delighted to announce this merger, giving the firm more strength and depth. We have a strong reputation as a leading provider of high quality dispute resolution and litigation services. We were impressed with Lax & Co’s shipping work – a new sector for us – and also with their international trade and arbitration capability, all of which now enhance the scope of services RK offers. The Lax & Co team are experts in their field and we believe our combined personnel will offer clients a formidable team of legal advisers”.

Mike Lax, senior partner at Lax & Co, a member of the Legal 500 Hall of Fame, said: “This is a very exciting announcement for us to make and there are real synergies with RK. The merger is a perfect fit for us and we look forward to building a successful future together.”

In the last year litigation lawyers have joined RK from many firms, including new partners Hannah Sharp from Hogan Lovells and Martin Meredith from Fladgate. The firm has made four internal promotions to partner and expanded the group of equity partners by seven.

Rosling King now has 9 partners in its Dispute Resolution Group. The Legal 500 ranked team is well-known for its work involving fraud and asset recovery, shareholder disputes, breaches of directors’ duties and professional negligence.

Lax & Co was set up by Mike Lax, the former head of shipping and international trade at Lawrence Graham, and Stuart Dench also formerly of Lawrence Graham. Robert Pollock-Hill is also joining Rosling King as a partner whilst Catriona Lewis joins as a senior associate.

The merged firm will operate from RK’s new offices in Ludgate Hill in the City of London.