Mr. Kawai is a partner and a former member of the executive committee of the firm. For the past twenty years, Mr. Kawai’s practice has focused on anti-trust/competition matters and international trade affairs, and he has handled large scale dispute cases and domestic and foreign regulatory investigations.

Mr. Kawai’s anti-trust/competition practice covers every area of the practice, i.e., violation cases such as cartel and unilateral conduct, merger regulations, and compliance to prevent violations of Japanese and foreign competition laws. Mr. Kawai continues to be recognized by international law journals such as Chambers, Legal 500, GCR, Who’s Who Legal, and the Global Competition Review as one of the top practitioners in Japan in the area of competition law.

In particular, in the area of international cartel cases, Mr. Kawai has been working as a global hub for Japanese clients and coordinating the work of foreign lawyers from various jurisdictions, and as a local counsel for foreign clients before the JFTC. In the area of merger regulation, Mr. Kawai successfully represented several major Japanese industries with regard to large scale merger and acquisition transactions, such as the merger between Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal, the JX Group integration, the business integration between Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and Hitachi, Ltd. on thermal power generation systems, the business integration of Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba on medium and small size TFT-LCDs as their global counsel and coordinated the work of lawyers from many jurisdictions before many competition authorities. In particular, Mr. Kawai represented a group of Japanese steel mills as lead counsel, strongly opposing BHP Billiton’ s proposed takeover bid for Rio Tinto, which was eventually abandoned by BHP Billiton.

In the area of international trade law, Mr. Kawai is widely recognized as a pioneer of trade law practice in Japan and has advised both the private sector and governmental agencies. Mr. Kawai has been involved in most of the trade remedy investigations conducted by the Japanese authorities to date, such as those for the imposition of anti-dumping duties and subsidy countervailing duties as counsel to Japanese and foreign clients, and in some overseas trade remedy investigations to defend Japanese clients. In addition, Mr. Kawai’s practice covers export regulations and disputes arising from the WTO Government Procurement Agreement for private sectors, as well as WTO dispute settlement procedures for government agencies.

In addition to the above, Mr. Kawai has been widely recognized as a leading lawyer in Japan by the business community and has been selected by The NIKKEI as one of the "Most successful lawyers” in the last several years. In particular, Mr. Kawai has represented Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal as its lead counsel with respect to its multinational trade secret litigation against POSCO, and in 2015 successfully negotiated a settlement favorably to the client.

Mr. Kawai taught competition law as a lecturer at the Tokyo Univ. Law School for 10 years from 2006, and currently sits as a member on various councils and study groups organized by governmental agencies.

Recent activities

1/2021

The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2021: Outstanding Results for Nishimura & Asahi

Awards

12/2020

Nishimura & Asahi leads in The Nikkei’s "Most Successful Lawyers in 2020"

Awards

12/2020

Chambers Asia-Pacific 2021: Top rankings for Nishimura & Asahi

Awards

Education

1994

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (LL.M., EC Law, magna cum laude)

1993

Columbia University School of Law (LL.M.)

1988

Legal Training and Research Institute of the Supreme Court of Japan

1984

The University of Tokyo (LL.B.)

Professional experience

2018 - 2019

Member, Meeting to Discuss Policy Measures Aimed at Regions

2016 - 2019

Bar Examiner of the National Bar Examination Commission (Competition Law)

2006 - 2015

Lecturer, University of Tokyo, School of Law

2003 - 2013

Ad hoc Member of Industrial Structure Council

2002 - 2004

Ad hoc Member of Industrial Property Council

1995 - 1997

Deputy Director, Trade Agreement Administration Division, WTO Affairs, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Tokyo

1994 - 1995

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Brussels

1984 - 1985

Research Associate (Joshu) of The University of Tokyo