Eagle Industry Co., Ltd. - Management Integration with NOK Corporation

Kojiro Fujii specializes in the fields of competition law and international trade law. He also covers emerging areas of digital policy/regulations and public policy/regulations, such as those related to sustainability. His expertise in these areas is frequently recognized by international and domestic legal publications. Kojiro also is regularly ranked by Chambers (Band 1 International Trade, Japan and Band 2 TMT, Japan) and Who’s Who Legal (Competition). He achieved the highest ranking in the “International Trade and Economic Security” category of Nikkei’s “Most successful lawyers” (as voted by Japanese companies and peer lawyers) in 2022; he was recognized by Asian Legal Business as one of the Top 15 Technology, Media and Telecommunications Lawyers in Asia in 2023; and he was shortlisted for the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards Asia-Pacific as the Most Innovative Practitioner for his work covering those areas in 2024.

In addition to his career at N&A, he served as the deputy director of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, where he handled several important WTO disputes on behalf of the Japanese government. He also worked at a highly reputable international law firm in Washington DC, where he focused on antitrust matters.

Since she joined Nishimura & Asahi in 2004, she has been involved in various types of corporate matters, including M&A, compliance and corporate group internal controls. She handles in day-to-day matters as well as strategic and special situations, and can provide business advice. With respect to corporate governance matters, she provides practical advice on the full spectrum of corporate governance matters including administration of shareholder meetings, company organization structures, disclosure, administration of the board of directors, board evaluations, executive compensation, and company indemnification. She also has extensive experience in the field of consumer law matters, such as how to respond to consumer-law related regulations, consumer organizations, and investigations by authorities. She has expertise and provides advice on advertising, marketing activities, and e-commerce.

Since joining Nishimura & Asahi in 2006, Yasunori has dealt with various M&A transactions in Japan and overseas. In particular, with respect to transactions involving listed companies, he excels at strategizing flexibly based on the complex circumstances and needs of the parties concerned, and seeing such projects to completion. When handling M&A transactions, he places an emphasis on maximizing the benefit to his clients while giving due consideration to the overall benefit to all of those involved. In addition to the above, Yasunori has advised on defenses against hostile takeovers and responses to shareholder activism for companies such as Toshiba Machine (currently Shibaura Machine) and Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho. In recent years, he has also provided advice for the acquisition side of hostile takeovers, with industrial companies as his clients.

Kazumaro’s antitrust practice spans various industries, including automotive, energy, telecommunication, medical/healthcare and finance. Kazumaro regularly represents clients in high-profile matters, including merger and acquisitions that require approval in multiple jurisdictions, and global and domestic cartel investigations.

He served as Director for Foreign Direct Investment Issues at the Ministry of Finance of Japan for three years from 2019 to 2022. During his tenure, he was the chief architect and strategist of the amendment of the FEFTA in 2020, where the threshold for prior mandatory notification for the acquisition of listed company shares by foreign investors was lowered from 10% to 1%. After the enactment of the amendment, he was in charge of reviewing the scope of designated business for the mandatory notification (addition of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment for communicable diseases, and critical mineral resource-related industries), strengthening the operation of screening and post-transaction monitoring, and strengthening cooperation in investment screening with relevant authorities of like-minded countries, including CFIUS of the U.S. He was also engaged in the planning and drafting of the revision of the FEFTA in 2022 (related to crypto assets) and the prohibition of new investment in Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He is the co-author of a section-by-section commentary on FDI screening under the FEFTA (“Sho-kai Gaitame-hou, Inward Direct Investment and Specified Acquisition Edition” (Shoji Homu, June 2021). He was also a speaker at webinars on FDI screening for government officials of member countries organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

May 2021 – Webinar on Transparency, Predictability and Accountability for investment screening mechanisms
May 2022 – Regulatory proportionality of investment screening mechanisms