Happy New Year.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude for your ongoing support during the past year.

Looking back on 2021, we faced a difficult environment in Japan with the prolonged emergency declaration due to rising COVID-19 cases and uncertain economic conditions. Fortunately, aside from a few regions, Japan and the rest of the world are showing signs of recovery. Despite these times, we were able to earn our clients’ trust, and supported them with domestic and international M&As, dispute resolution, EPC projects, intellectual property and license agreements, antitrust and competition matters as well as provided remote and in-house legal services.

As a result, we received high praise from the international media. For example, we were ranked in IFLR1000’s 31^st Edition as “Other Notable Firm” in the categories for “Japan M&A” and “Japan Corporate and M&A” as well as in asialaw Profiles and Leading Lawyers 2022 Edition as “Other Notable Firm” for the “Japan Corporate and M&A” category. In addition, the Firm’s lawyers were finalists for the ALB Japan Law Awards 2021 (Mikiharu Mori, Koki Yamada and Kotaro Okada) and ALB Women in Law Awards 2021, Private Practitioner of the Year for North Asia (Naoko Yanaka).

This year, we created a “Visual Identity” (or symbolic logo), using the Firm’s color (clear dark blue sky) and arranging “T”, “K” and “I” to form an emblem that resembles Lady Justice with outstretched arms.

Our mid-to-long term goals are to become a “Top Global Firm Originating from Japan”, while providing exceptional value-added services to support our clients’ success and creating a comfortable working environment to enhance the “happiness” of the Firm’s members. As part of our global platform strategy, we have assembled a Tokyo-based team of attorneys who can provide services in many of the world’s major jurisdictions, and we have continued to expand our global network of affiliated law firms.

Last year, we continued to invest in human resources. Five lateral hires (four in 2021 and one this January) and other professional staff joined our team. As of January 2022, we have a total of 17 Japanese-licensed attorneys and foreign-licensed attorneys who are admitted in the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China and New Zealand.

Our goal for 2022 is to further increase our value-add for clients through developing a system that enables us to utilize 120% of our team’s capabilities. The law is not an “end” itself, but the rules (a “means”) for being a member of a company or society. By not misunderstanding the relationship between “ends” and “means”, we are able to pursue a solution-oriented style based on business objectives. We strive to accurately grasp our clients’ needs, asking ourselves how we can address issues that arise during their business activities and how we can use legal thinking to achieve the best outcomes for them in negotiations and disputes.

In 2022, we will continue to support our clients with a focus on the following practice areas:

Specialized Areas

• Corporate M&A (acquisition, integration, etc.)
• Cross-border M&A (United States, China, India, Southeast Asia, etc.)
• China Practice
• International litigation and arbitration (product liability litigation, intellectual property disputes, corporate disputes, etc.)
• EPC and construction projects (EPC contracts, dispute resolution, etc.)
• Intellectual property and licensing (international licensing agreements for pharmaceutical companies, etc.)
• Antitrust and competition law (regulatory filings worldwide, compliance, etc.)

General Legal Support

• Remote and in-house legal services

Through the realization of the above mid- to long-term goals and the goals for 2022, we promise to provide our clients with even higher value-added legal services this year.

We look forward to working with you in 2022.

New Year 2022