1.General Corporate
Our office offers a full range of general corporate legal services to Japanese and foreign businesses including corporate establishment and administrative filings, permit and approval applications, shareholder and board of directors guidance, contract drafting and negotiations, labor issues, compliance, and corporate mergers, reorganization, and dissolution. We place special emphasis on careful drafting and individual attention in our agreements in order to not only reduce our clients’ risks, but to avoid future litigation and legal disputes.

2.International Transactions
Our office provides full transactional services from contract drafting and negotiation to regulatory compliance for cross border transactions between Japanese and overseas companies. We offer a full array of transactional experience including licensing, distribution, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures. We have established a system under which we can offer our clients not only our own services and expertise, but also the expertise, when needed, of affiliated firms in other countries.

With companies doing business internationally, there inevitably comes the risk of litigation in other countries.
To deal with this risk, we offer our clients extensive experience representing Japanese and foreign businesses in international litigation and arbitration.

3.Intellectual Property
With publication in July 2002 of its Outline of National Intellectual Property Strategy and subsequent legislation such as the Intellectual Property Basic Act, the Japanese government has moved to promote intellectual property as a twenty-first-century national priority. With this new emphasis, Japanese businesses have come to place greater emphasis on IP development and protection than ever before.

Our office offers a wealth of experience in providing the most relevant advice regarding patents, know-how, and copyrights and in drafting and negotiating license and technology transfer and protection agreements tailored to each client’s needs. In addition to extensive experience in representing clients in patent litigation in Japan and the United States, we also provide representation in patent invalidation procedures at the Japanese Patent Office as well as for import restrictions with the Japanese customs service. We provide all of our IP services in affiliation with registered patent attorneys and technical specialists, and with full and complete understanding of the technologies at issue, so that we can provide our clients with services fully responsive to their legal, technical and business needs.

4.Project Finance
Our office has extensive experience representing clients in overseas natural resource and infrastructure development projects including full project finance drafting and negotiating.

5.Mergers & Acquisitions
We offer full support for mergers and acquisitions from advice, study and drafting of potential project schemes to due diligence, contract drafting and negotiation, and administrative filings.

6.Antitrust/Trade Law
Whether in mergers, joint ventures, licensing, distribution relationships or other business activities, companies must keep in mind potential antitrust violations. Our office provides full antitrust reviews of our clients’ plans and we are able to incorporate our experience not only into representing our clients in antitrust matters but in designing ventures and business relationships that avoid antitrust concerns in the first place. We also have extensive experience representing Japanese businesses involved in dumping actions in the United States and the European Union.

7.Tax
It is inevitable that there will be various tax implications to doing business between Japanese and non-Japanese companies. With the assistance of our affiliated accountants and tax consultants our office provides optimum tax planning regarding tax laws in Japan and in those countries that have concluded tax treaties with Japan.

8.Employment Law
Employment and labor matters are essential for all businesses. It is especially essential for foreign businesses operating in Japan to have optimal advice regarding Japan’s labor rules and regulations. Our office provides advice to Japanese and non-Japanese businesses regarding employment agreements and regulatory compliance as well as handling disciplinary, termination, and other personnel matters. We also provide representation in court and arbitration proceedigns related to the resolution of employment disputes.

9.Other Conflict Resolution
In order to provide proper service and advice to our corporate clients in their day-to-day management, we offer advice in a wide array of matters including ordinary civil disputes, bankruptcies, medical practice cases, and administrative matters. We also provide representation in arbitration, mediation and other alternative dispute resolution venues.

Although the majority of our clients are businesses, we also provide services to individual clients seeking to fulfill our social duty as attorneys by providing pro bono representation.