The Middle East is the home of some of the world’s leading oil exporting countries, and Japan is highly dependent upon oil imports from the Middle East. The Middle Eastern countries have developed their infrastructure and industries by utilizing their enormous oil revenues and importing technologies and technological know-how from Western and Asian countries including Japan. As the population of the Middle East rapidly increases, the area is becoming more attractive as a consumer market. On the other hand, the situation in the Middle East is ever changing and involves geopolitically complicated issues, as seen with the recent lifting of economic sanctions on Iran resulting from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed in July 2015.
With respect to matters involving Middle Eastern countries that have a high potential as consumer markets as well as the complicated issues mentioned above, we provide a wide variety of strategic legal services to our clients, including public sector agencies and private institutions both on a domestic and overseas basis.
The related business sectors include energy and resources, construction, finance, real estate, the medical and pharmaceutical industry, and other types of manufacturing, and the distribution of products and the provision of services.
The fields covered by our legal services vary, ranging from transactional matters (including M&A deals, Islamic or other conventional types of financial transactions, and distributorship agreements), regulatory matters (including foreign investment, agency regulations, economic sanctions and export control), dispute resolution matters (including litigation and arbitration cases, cases under the investment treaties), and general research projects regarding the legal regimes and practices in the Middle East.
Our Middle-East practice team has published many books and articles, including the “Business Law Guidebook of Saudi Arabia” in 2009, “Business Law Guidebook of the Middle Eastern Countries” in 2010, “Legal Practice in the Middle Eastern Countries and the Civil Code of the UAE” in 2013, and “Business Law and Practice in the Islamic Area” in 2014. In order to update the books and articles mentioned above, in March 2015, the team published the “Business Law Guidebook of the Middle Eastern Countries”, which widely covers the Middle Eastern area. In addition, our team published the “Business Law Guidebook of Iran” in March 2016, to provide our clients with up-to-date information on Iran, which has been attracting increasing attention following the lifting of economic sanction in January 2016.

In recent years, Japan and many other countries have recognized the appeal of Africa as a potentially large business market. There are a total of 54 independent countries on the African continent, and not only has the GDP per person been steadily growing since 2000, owing to its abundant natural resources, but also the middle income class has been steadily increasing in parallel with the continuous growth in the population. Thus, there are several markets in Africa that are comprised of hundreds of millions of people when considering the scale of several of the economic communities. In addition, interest in both the public and private sectors in promoting the development of Africa is continuing to grow as a result of various factors, including the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) led by the Japanese government and jointly hosted by the UN, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the African Union Commission (AUC) and the World Bank.

We need to bear in mind, however, that each country in Africa has its own unique historical background, many of them having experienced domination by colonial powers and subsequent independence. Therefore, not only the language, but also the legal systems and legal practices are quite diverse among each of the countries. There are many areas in each of these countries’ legal systems and markets that are not fully developed, and although the situation has recently started to change, there are still risk factors that include not only public security and infectious diseases, but also widespread corruption and other legal risks that greatly influence the legal practices that do exist.

In view of the current trends outlined above, our firm has established an African Practice Team in order to mainly support our Japanese corporate clients in achieving their business strategies involving Africa.　Our firm’s African Practice Team has a strong network of local law firms in African countries that have a good reputation and maintain close relationships with Africa business related parties in Japan and overseas. Thus, our firm’s African Practice Team, taking advantage of these various networks, is ready and able to support our corporate clients and others wishing to explore business opportunities in relation to Africa, in both legal and various other respects.
Professionals Contact