International cartel investigation in connection with various auto parts
People
Takefumi Sato is a partner in the M&A and general corporate practice groups at Nishimura & Asahi. He has represented clients in various M&A transactions and other kinds of domestic and cross-border commercial transactions. His broad M&A experience includes business mergers and strategic alliances involving listed companies and going-private transactions via cash-out schemes, management buyouts, and joint ventures, and covers a wide range of industries such as manufacturing and financial services. He has also advised companies on defending against unsolicited bids and hostile takeover attempts. In addition, he has a wealth of expertise in matters related to the Companies Act and the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and has frequently counseled clients on corporate governance matters, including advising on shareholders meetings and providing support for business judgments. He also lectures and publishes in these areas. Moreover, he has recently expanded his practice to emerging legal issues in situations requiring difficult business decisions.
Ryutaro Nakayama specializes in General Corporate and M&A work, and advises clients on a broad range of issues and transactions relating to M&A, Japanese corporate, securities, tax, and merger control laws, and regulations specific to various industries. He is a leading lawyer in the field of competition law in Japan, and possesses a unique set of skills and experience, drawn from his extensive experience handling M&A, corporate, and merger control cases and transactions. He has obtained transaction clearances from competition authorities even where the resulting combined market share exceeded 50% in the relevant markets. He has led Nishimura & Asahi’s Africa Practice Team since its formation in 2014. He has established a strong network of connections with Japanese entrepreneurs and businesses that target the African continent, as well as with leading law firms based in Africa. He has been named a leading lawyer in the fields of Corporate/M&A and/or competition law by various publications, including Chambers Global, Chambers Asia-Pacific, and The Nikkei’s annual rankings of “Most Successful Lawyers.” He was appointed the Managing Partner of Nishimura & Asahi in April 2021.
Kei Umebayashi is a partner at Nishimura & Asahi and previously worked at the Special Investigative Section of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, where he obtained extensive experience and know-how in criminal investigations.
He is expert at gathering evidence and conducting hearings.
He mainly handles cases in which the executives or officers of a company leaked, intentionally or accidentally, the company’s confidential information, including customer data and business secrets.
He deals with matters conducted by Japanese authorities, including the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) and the Fair Trade Commission.
Additionally, he gives valuable advice concerning a variety of other matters, such as insider trading, antitrust law, leniency applications under antitrust law, and inquiries by the US Department of Justice, European Commission and other foreign authorities when a company is targeted by them due to alleged violations of antitrust laws.
Yuki Oi is a partner in our M&A/Corporate practice group. He advises domestic and international corporations and financial institutions on their cross-border and domestic M&A transactions. He also handles corporate governance matters and general corporate issues, as well as corporate crisis management matters and commercial litigation.
Some of the major cases he has advised on include representing UFJ Holdings on its integration with Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (2006), Bulldog Sauce on its famous defense against a hostile takeover attempt initiated by Steel Partners (2007), the Osaka Securities Exchange on its integration with the Tokyo Stock Exchange (2011), Idemitsu Kosan on its integration with Showa Shell Sekiyu (2015-19), Toshiba on its divestiture of Toshiba Memory Corporation (2018), and Honda on its strategic alliance with Sony Group in mobility sector (2022).
He was awarded the Young Lawyer of the Year Award at the ALB Japan Law Awards 2019, and the Innovative Practitioners Award at the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards Asia-Pacific 2020. He was also selected as one of Asia’s top 40 lawyers under 40 by Asian Legal Business in 2017.
He has also served as a lecturer at the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law (2012-13), and Graduate Schools for Law and Politics (2014-present).
Madoka advises clients on various matters of competition law, including domestic and international cartels, bid-rigging, M&A transactions, investigations by the JFTC, leniency applications and general antitrust law compliance. She is especially active in cross-border transactions. She has represented clients in connection with investigations into various global cartels, involving air cargo, marine hoses, TFT-LCDs, airlines, and bearings, and also in various merger-control cases, including a vertical integration between semiconductor equipment manufacturers, and major global merger transactions in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. She has particular strength and experience handling IT-industry mega deals. Madoka is also active in advising in the international trade area, in particular, government procurement and export control. In addition, she advises on laws preventing unfair competition, including trade secret cases. She served as lead counsel to Nippon Steel Corporation in multinational trade secret litigation against POSCO (a South Korean steel company), a landmark case in this area, and successfully negotiated a favorable settlement for her client. She was a member of the Subcommittee on Unfair Trade Policies and Measures of the Industrial Structure Council at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from 2013 to 2023.
Tokuhiro Matsunaga has handled a wide variety of cross-border M&A transactions in Asia and other regions. Recently, he has been focusing on the expansion of N&A’s Thai legal practice, and provides hands-on support to both Japanese and international clients that invest or are located in Thailand. He advises clients from both corporate/M&A and competition law perspectives, and has prevailed in a broad range of complicated cases, such as M&A transactions that involve serious antitrust issues. In addition, he has extensive experience with competition law investigations by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission, as well as investigations by other competition authorities in more than 15 countries. He also advises on other legal practice areas, including corporate governance, shareholders’ meetings, countermeasures against hostile takeovers and shareholder activism, compliance enhancement, internal investigations, and whistleblowing cases. He is adept at precisely understanding clients’ needs, and works carefully and efficiently to achieve the optimal outcomes for his clients.
Kozo’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. Kozo continues to be recognized by international law journals as one of the top practitioners in Japan in the area of competition law. He has handled large scale international cartel cases and has contributed to the realization of prominent merger regulations. In the area of international trade law, Kozo is widely recognized as a pioneer of trade law practice in Japan and has advised both the private sector and governmental agencies. He has been involved in most of the trade remedy investigations, 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, Kozo’s practice covers international disputes, corporate crisis management, and regulatory investigations.