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Most innovative Japanese law firm: Financial Times Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyer Awards 2019

The Financial Times, together with its research partner RSG Consulting, named Nishimura & Asahi the most innovative Japanese law firm in its 2019 ranking of the “Most Innovative Law Firms in Asia-Pacific (Asia-Pacific headquartered),” at their 6th annual FT Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyer Awards, held at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center on May 2, 2019.

There was substantial competition for this year’s awards, with 537 submissions, and nominations from 81 law firms and legal-services providers and from 40 in-house legal teams across the region. Researchers then conducted in-depth interviews with more than 400 clients, senior lawyers, executives and experts, using a unique methodology to rank lawyers on innovation to arrive at the final rankings. This year, a total of 60 leading law firms and 27 in-house legal teams were ranked across the Asia-Pacific region.

Our firm and lawyers also received separate “highly commended” and “commended” citations for our groundbreaking work on the following matters:

Legal Expertise: Managing Complexity and Scale
 - Takeda Pharmaceutical: Acquisition of Shire plc
   Yo Ota, Tsuyoshi Ito, Kohei Koikawa, Hiroko Shibata, Toshiyuki Nonaka, Kentaro Sugimoto, Yoshiyuki Asaoka, Yamato Nozawa
 - Idemitsu Kosan: Business integration with Showa Shell Sekiyu
   Ryutaro Nakayama, Yuki Oi, Kohei Koikawa, Naoya Ariyoshi, Kaku Hirao, Yusuke Motoyanagi, Takeshi NemotoKazumaro Kobayashi

Legal Expertise: Creating a New Standard
 - Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: Acquisition of Hitachi Kokusai Electric
   Asa Shinkawa, Hideo Horikoshi, Takahiko Date, Makoto Shimizu

Rule of Law and Access to Justice
 - Grameen Nippon: Launch of Japan version of Grameen Bank
   Takeshi Nemoto