Tokyo International Law Office (TKI) has made Singapore its first global expansion destination with an imminent office opening, setting out to grow its core strengths in global dispute resolution as well as corporate and M&A.
TKI, founded in 2019 by former lawyers at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto and Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, on 6 November its plan to launch its first overseas office in Singapore in January next year.
Koki Yamada, TKI’s co-founder and co-managing partner, told Asia Business Law Journal that his firm’s number one initial area of focus for the Singapore outpost was Asia-related international dispute resolution, taking advantage of the Lion City’s role as a hub for dispute settlement and investment in the Indo-Pacific region.
Yamada, who has already arrived in the Lion City and will serve as the Singapore office head, and two other lawyers, set to relocate to the new office, are all experienced in dispute resolution.
Earl Rivera-Dolera, TKI’s disputes resolution partner and a former head of Vietnam-based law firm Frasers Law Company’s international arbitration practice, is also scheduled to move to Singapore in January next year together with associate Kosuke Nakano, a former prosecutor who previously worked at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Besides targeting disputes work, Yamada said his firm had also set its sights on obtaining mandates from Japanese companies for advising on their outbound cases including M&A, infrastructure and energy in India as well as the wider Asia region.
In July this year, TKI added to its foreign lawyer bench in recruiting the former head of Indian law firm Kochhar & Co’s Tokyo office, Imran Khan, as a counsel to co-lead its India and Middle East practice group in the Japanese capital. Before joining TKI, Khan had practised as a foreign attorney co-heading the India and Middle East practices of Japanese law firm Uryu & Itoga.
In Singapore, Yamada expects to see a high percentage of clients being Japanese companies expanding overseas. But he said that, as the third area of focus for the Singapore branch, his firm would aim to build a clientele of global companies with regional headquarters in the Lion City looking to expand their business into Japan through M&A, infrastructure, energy and other forms of investment.
The firm, which will operate in the Lion City under the foreign law practice licence, will not be able to provide Singapore law advice and does not plan to do so. But Yamada told Asia Business Law Journal that the Singapore outfit will offer legal services in not only Japanese law, but also foreign laws including those of the UK, US and the Philippines through the three lawyers on the ground.
The Tokyo team, which will be working in conjunction with the Singapore office to advise clients in French, Indian and Chinese laws among others, has been expanded in the past year. Currently, it features senior lawyers including former Baker & McKenzie Tokyo’s M&A partner Jean-Denis Marx, and ex-DLA Piper and EY Japan tax partner Makiko Kawamura.
