The Real Estate Law Review - Twelfth Edition: Japan

Norio Maeda is a partner with expertise in transactions involving the acquisition and development of, the financing of, and investment in, Japanese renewable energy projects. He has represented domestic and foreign investors, developers, and lenders, including infrastructure funds, energy companies, and financial institutions from the U.S., Europe, and Asia in numerous green-field and brown-field projects. Norio’s practice also covers transactions involving acquisition and development, investment, and financing with respect to Japanese real estate assets. He is highly skilled at developing innovative investment and financing structures. He has represented domestic and foreign investors, including investment funds, financial institutions, investment managers, and developers from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, in numerous investment and development projects involving sophisticated structures. He also has represented lenders in numerous structured finance transactions involving real estate assets. Norio’s transactional experience includes establishment of Japanese investment platforms into Japanese real estate assets using the TMK and GK-TK schemes, as well as the restructuring of Japanese real estate asset investments. In addition, Norio has extensive experience in inbound cross-border financing transactions for the operation of multi-national corporations in Japan. He has worked on inbound financing transactions under global debt facilities for multi-national corporations headquartered in Asia and other parts of the world. These transactions have involved collateral consisting of various types of assets and have employed a wide variety of credit support structures.

Takuya has advised Japanese and international financial institutions, funds, and investors on a large number of structured finance transactions. He also worked on secondment at a European office of a Japanese financial institution.

Akihiro Shiba represents a wide range of clients, including numerous financial institutions and FinTech firms, within and outside Japan, in connection with licensing, compliance and other regulatory matters (such as those related to banking, securities, derivatives, and payments regulations, FDI restrictions, and AML/CFT/CPF requirements), and domestic and cross-border financial transactions (including those related to structured finance and asset management). Since 2014, his practice has focused on various FinTech matters, including those involving various digital tokens (such as cryptocurrencies, securities tokens, stablecoins, and NFTs), online platform-based financial transactions (like social lending and other crowdfunding), and online remittance and payment services (such as mobile payments). He has written numerous books and articles, and given many seminars and lectures, on subjects relevant to his practice areas.