Atsumi & Sakai

Managing Partner: Hiroo Atsumi

Number of partners: 109

Number of lawyers: 220+

International Offices: New York, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Ho Chi Minh City

Languages: Japanese, English, German, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Hindi, Marathi, Sinhala, etc.

Firm Overview:

Atsumi & Sakai is a multi-award-winning, independent Tokyo law firm, and one of the ten largest independent full-service law firms in Japan. The firm was the first Japanese law firm to create a foreign law joint venture dating back to 2005, which enables it to admit foreign partners and so offer its clients the quality of service that the modern international business community demands. Expanding from its highly regarded finance practice, the firm now acts for a wide range of international and domestic companies, banks, financial institutions and other businesses, offering a comprehensive range of legal expertise.

Atsumi & Sakai has an outward-looking approach to its international practice, and has a number of foreign partners, consultants and attorneys with extensive experience at leading international law firms, so offering its clients the benefit of a combination of Japanese law expertise and real international experience.

With Tokyo’s susceptibility to earthquakes, Atsumi & Sakai has for many years maintained disaster recovery measures such as remote working, and off-site document storage and access; these measures enabled the firm to quickly comply with the Japanese government’s COVID repression advice to close offices, whilst still maintaining full service for its clients.

With the rapid advance and development of technologies such as internet of things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence (AI), analytics and communications, and the expansion of these applications across all business fields, legislators frequently have trouble keeping up with the pace of change. Digital transformation post COVID-19 also is a key issue. Laws which were framed for earlier circumstances may have unintended consequences as a result of these developments, whilst in other cases laws designed to regulate certain industries or business sectors may need to be interpreted and applied in light of the changing face of technology. Atsumi & Sakai keeps abreast of these changes, and assists clients with the novel legal issues arising from them through the following practices:

Innovation Practice:

This practice group combines lawyers experienced in the fields of law relevant to this rapidly changing world. There are two teams in the innovation practice group: the fintech team and the IoT/AI team. The fintech team assists clients ranging from large companies to start-ups such as financial institutions, telecommunication companies, technology companies, venture capital firms, etc. and together with the IoT/AI team provides legal support for technical innovation in X-Tech industries. Legal services include contracts of affiliation, joint ventures, share purchases, etc., regulatory advice (including licensing matters and structuring and creation of new products and solutions), public relations, IPO, incorporation of a new company, employment advice, fundraising structure advice, data protection and cybersecurity, and IP matters. The teams also support governmental agencies, academic institutions and industrial groups for research and investigations on laws and regulations in various jurisdictions.

Atsumi & Sakai is a part of the fintech ecosystem. The firm links clients to potential transaction partners, potential role models, potential investors, government support desks, and supports industry-government-academia partnerships. The firm leads the industry and community to grow in an appropriate way by avoiding money laundering and protecting consumers. Team members often speak at international and domestic events and conferences and establish networks in the fintech community worldwide.

Atsumi & Sakai is a part of the fintech ecosystem. The firm links clients to potential transaction partners, potential role models, potential investors, government support desks, and support industry-government-academia partnerships. The firm leads the industry and community to grow in an appropriate way by avoiding money laundering and protecting consumers. Team members often speak at international and domestic events and conferences and establish networks in the fintech community worldwide.

Sectors:

■ Digital Bank

■ Smart Finance Management

■ Crowd Funding

■ Payment Services

■ Smartphone based services by securities and insurance companies

■ Invoice Trading

■ Lending

■ Crowdfunding

■ Information Bank

■ Automated Investment Advice

■ Cryptoassets & Digital Currencies

■ Security Token Offerings (STO)

■ InsurTech Distributed Ledger Technology based transactions

■ Application Programming Interface (API) provided by banks, securities and insurances

Atsumi & Sakai has been constantly recognised as a leading firm in the banking and finance section of Chambers Global/Asia Pacific/FinTech, The Legal 500, IFLR 1000 and asialaw Profiles. From 2016 to date, Atsumi & Sakai has been listed as a Tier 1 independent local firm in the TMT section of The Legal 500 Asia Pacific.