Latham & Watkins has doubled its partner head count in Tokyo, recruiting three corporate partners from Morrison & Foerster—a move taking place as global firms have been expanding their M&A practices in Japan.

Ivan Smallwood, Noah Carr and Stuart Beraha, who were all Tokyo partners at Morrison & Foerster, advise Japanese companies and financial investors on outbound merger and acquisition transactions.

Smallwood and Carr specialise in structuring and negotiating outbound acquisitions, investments and divestitures, strategic alliances, and joint venture transactions in the technology, telecommunications and financial services industries. Both were part of the team that advised Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. on a $32 billion acquisition of U.K.-based chip designer ARM Holdings Plc. in 2016.