Trowers & Hamlins has become the first firm to be granted a qualified foreign law firm (QFLF) licence in Malaysia.

Whilst Trowers has had a presence in the region for the last three years, it has previously only operated a non-trading office.  The licence will allow Trowers to advise on international legal issues, but only a maximum of five QLFL licences will be granted.  Trowers has its hands on one of the five lucky golden tickets to the chocolate factory at Kualu Lumpur, but it remains to be seen whether other firms will run like Charlie to get through Wonka's gates.

Whether Trowers can make a success of this will largely depend on how much they can leverage off their Islamic Finance capability.  The liberalising of the Malaysian legal market is particularly intended to attract foreign firms to boost the country's Islamic finance market, which is booming and predicted to grow substantially over the next few years.  With Malaysia and the UAE as the two global centres for Islamic finance work, Trowers should be well placed to deliver Shari'ah compliant finance advice teaming up with its four offices in the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain and Oman).  Trowers partners Nick White and Nicholas Edmondes, who will be leading the charge in Malaysia, will no doubt be saying Insha'Allah a lot over the coming months.

Trowers - the first through the door.  How it might look.

After winning RoF's Golden Turd, seeing a collapse in profits and waving goodbye to some of its top partners the firm deserves a bit of luck.