Atsumi Sakai Janssen Foreign Law Joint Enterprise

General information

The leading Japanese law office ATSUMI & SAKAI and JANSSEN FOREIGN LAW OFFICE have entered into a Foreign Law Joint Enterprise to form integrated legal teams in the closest form of cooperation between Japanese and foreign lawyers. In this way, we combine the bridge function of a foreign law office with the legal expertise of a leading Japanese law firm.

With about 100 Japanese and foreign professionals in practice groups covering the entire field of business law, ATSUMI & SAKAI is one of the ten largest Japanese law firms. In order to better serve clients, the firm has established a foreign law joint enterprise in Japan with senior foreign lawyers. Building on its award-winning practices, the firm has been recognized for both excellence and its innovative capability in fields as various as cross border transactions, banking (including syndicated loans, securitization/structured finance, and project finance), Mergers & Acquisitions, Energy, Oil/Gas, Construction/Infrastructure, Antitrust law, cross border litigation and insolvency/ADR, the creation and management of investment funds, IP/IT practice both inbound and outbound, and labor and employment law.

Based on our over 15 years of experience in legal consulting for European investors in Japan and our thorough understanding of their needs, JANSSEN FOREIGN LAW OFFICE can make best use of the rich resources of ATSUMI & SAKAI in order to create a fully integrated and specialized team of Japanese and foreign lawyers for each case.

For its services in Europe, JANSSEN FOREIGN LAW OFFICE has a broad network of reputable and dependable professionals, including the ATSUMI & SAKAI network.

How we assist our clients

Structuring Cross-Border Transactions. We enable clients to evaluate and optimize alternatives throughout the entire process: Identifying a partner or investment target, managing negotiations, then implementing the transaction. By pointing out the relevant legal, tax, technical and cultural interfaces we enable our clients to make best use of their industry know-how and their standing in the competitive Japanese and European markets.

Negotiations. We enable our clients to make use of negotiations as a pivotal point to build trust for the whole transaction, without ceding ground on the central issues. Fluency in both speaking and writing the relevant local languages and the ability to manage course of the negotiations are the key to success in Japan and Europe.

Implementation of Clients’ Standards. We help our clients implement their standards in a transaction of an investment by adjusting the clients` standards to the local standards and practices, without compromising their essence. Best practice recognition identified by such processes is an important added value of acquisitions and cooperation.

Post-Closing Implementation. Our transaction management and documentation is focused on effectively assisting the client in the actual implementation of the transaction after closing. M&A contracts are supported by simulations of their balance sheet effects (for the target as well as the purchaser and/or seller). Due diligence reports create full scope documentations of the target and/or transaction. To-Do lists provide concise guidance on issues to be followed up.

Saving legal costs through organized documentation. Organizing and standardizing the legal documentation of our clients helps to avoid ineffective use of expensive legal resources. Moreover, cost arguments can be used to keep negotiations close to standardized paths, often allowing to burden the costs of making deviations legally acceptable on the other party. Training and hot-line support for in-house counsels enable our clients to effectively use such features.