Nishimura & Asahi has become the first of Japan’s “big four” law firms to set up offices in Europe, choosing Frankfurt over London as Japanese companies reorganise to cope with Brexit and prepare for an expected boom in dealmaking in the EU.
The move by Japan’s biggest law firm follows a record year of outbound M&A in 2019 as Japanese companies shifted gear, boosting both the number of deals and the overall financial value as the pool of companies pursuing takeovers expanded into the manufacturing and services sectors from financial services.
Nishimura’s decision to establish its European foothold in the German hubs of Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, said the partners leading the move, was a direct effect of the Economic Partnership Agreement trade pact between the EU and Japan. Signed in 2018, that deal is the largest ever negotiated by Brussels and will now no longer apply to the UK.
The Japanese firm also cited mounting pressure from domestic clients — the more than 500 Japanese companies that expect to be engaged in increasing the volume of EU-based business following the EPA and the trade barriers it removed.
Many of those companies, said Nishimura lawyers and M&A bankers in Tokyo, now intend to expand on the continent via acquisitions. [...]
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