Nishimura’s new European push to seize on competition work

Nishimura & Asahi, which has recently announced further expansion into Europe, has set out to tap a growing volume of cross-border M&A and corporate work between Europe and Japan, and a concurrent uptake in demand for competition law advice as the EU tightens FDI screening, Asia Business Law Journal has learned.

On 15 October, Nishimura & Asahi announced the scheduled launch of new offices in London and Brussels by early next year, boosting its outposts in the continent to four after those in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf.

Kojiro Fujii, the Brussels office’s representative partner who specialises in various areas including antitrust and international trade laws, told Asia Business Law Journal that his office would predominantly focus on European competition and international trade laws, such as antidumping, trade remedies, exports controls and economic sanctions.

“The new challenges with respect to transactions are that the EU has implemented new filing regulations associated with M&A in addition to competition filings,” said Fujii, whose office will be equipped with European law-qualified lawyers specialising in trade and competition practices.

Fujii explained that his office would, besides competition filings, focus on helping Japanese companies navigate new filing requirements in the EU such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation and increasingly frequent FDI screening for national security implications for M&A or joint ventures relating to high-tech industries such as semiconductors, AI, robotics and pharmaceuticals.

“Naturally, merger filings are a part of this trend (of more M&A and corporate work between Europe and Japan), and our firm can assist with basic merger filings that Japanese companies need to handle when doing cross-border [work], especially European M&A,” said Fujii.

According to a 22 March 2024 report by White & Case, Japanese dealmakers were the most active bidders in Europe from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region last year, having engaged in 135 deals worth USD10.8 billion. The numbers put Japanese companies far ahead of second-placed Australia, whose companies had conducted 66 transactions worth USD6.5 billion.

With many European businesses operated by Japanese companies being headquartered in London, Nishimura & Asahi’s new London office would mainly focus on M&A deals and projects with a Europe link, London office’s representative partner Yoshiyuki Kizu told Asia Business Law Journal.

Kizu’s team in London, consisting mainly of Japanese attorneys together with a locally qualified lawyer, will be working closely with the Brussels office and best friend law firms in Europe to advise on inbound investments, while also focusing on helping European companies’ transactions in Japan.

Read the related article here:

For more stories about Nishimura & Asahi, visit law.asia.

_{Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.}