ANALYSIS: Australian firms renew Japan focus

An increase in Japanese investment throughout South East Asia and Australia has led more Australian firms to focus their resources on building relationships with the Japanese market. Last week Allens Arthur Robinson announced a formal alliance with top tier Japanese firm Nagashima, Ohno & Tsunematsu (NO&T) while in April Blake Dawson opened an office in Tokyo.

Ian Williams, head of the North Asian practice at Blake Dawson, said the firm has been busier than they could have predicted. The Japan team is set to expand significantly in the coming months on the back of strengthening outbound M&A deals and PPP partnerships between the two countries. The office has grown to seven lawyers since launching and Williams expects it to reach 10 by mid 2011.

According to Williams, Japanese companies such as Nomura, Bank of Tokyo and Mitsubishi are aggressively expanding their operations in Australia – in addition to a flood of acquisition deals coming to market between the two jurisdictions. “There is a lot of M&A work outbound from Japan with plenty of buying interest in coal mines and LNG. As a separate category the number of PPPs likely to be available for Japanese investors – whether it be constructors or equity arrangers or investors – is growing,” he said.

Blake Dawson has had alliances with three of the top four firms in Japan for many years including Nishimura & Asahi, Mori Hamada & Tomotsune and Anderson Mori & Tomotsun, and will continue to have strong relationships with them despite having an office on the ground. “We have had mutual secondment agreements with them for many years. But we see a clear point of difference between us and those with alliances,” said Williams.

Mallesons Stephen Jaques managing partner Stuart Fuller agrees that that the amount of investment coming out of Japan into the region has increased. “I have noticed that investment into Indonesia is on the re-bound. Their government, economy and resources are in great shape for investment,” he said.
The firm has relationships with a number of Japanese firms, but has not formalised any agreements. “We have a strong relationship with Anderson Mori & Tomotsune. We exchange lawyers with them regularly and have three of their lawyers with us at the moment,” Fuller told ALB.

The approach has been similar to this at Clayton Utz, with an additional twist; Clayton Utz also has a registered Japanese lawyer within its own ranks in Australia. “We have a registered Japanese lawyer (bengoshi) at the firm, partner Hiroyuki Kano, who is also a qualified lawyer in the US (New York) and Australia. He is the only bengoshi practising law in Australia,” said partner and head of the Japanese Practice group at Clayton Utz, Andrew Hay.

Clayton Utz deals with a variety of firms and conducts secondment programs with all of the top four Japanese firms, including NO&T. “We will continue to run secondment programs and provide referrals to all firms,” said Hay.

Clayton Utz has also witnessed Japanese investment into Australia increase significantly over the years. Hay said investment from Japan started with resources and energy in the 1960s and has now expanded to include other industries such as property, food, tourism education and agribusiness.


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