Japan's Nishimura & Asahi to Merge With Thai Firm SCL
SCL is a 60-lawyer Bangkok-based firm led by IP and M&A specialist Chavalit Uttasart.
August 26, 2019 at 04:53 AM
4 minute read
Japan's largest law firm, Nishimura & Asahi, will merge with a Thai firm, becoming just the second major Japanese firm to do so.
Nishimura & Asahi's eight-lawyer Bangkok office will merge with 60-lawyer SCL Law Group in October; the merged Bangkok office will operate under the new name SCL Nishimura.
SCL was founded in 2005 by managing partner Chavalit Uttasart, who specialises in intellectual property and mergers and acquisitions. Previously, Uttasart was a partner at Thai firm International Legal Counsellors Thailand Ltd.
The SCL group comprises eight entities: Siam City Law Offices Ltd., the main entity that advises on corporate law and dispute resolution; IP arm Chavalit & Associates Ltd.; tax arm SCL Tax Consultants Ltd.; foreign investment arm SCL International Ltd.; and Chavalit & Partners Ltd., which is based in the coastal resort of Hua Hin in southern Thailand, and advises on property, corporate and tax matters. The firm also has three overseas offices: Siam City Law (Myanmar) Co. Ltd. in Yangon; SCL Law Offices Ltd. (SCL Lao) in Vientiane, Laos; and SCL SP&P Co. Ltd. (Cambodia) in Phnom Penh. SCL's offices outside Thailand are not part of the Nishimura merger.
Until July last year, SCL was the Thai member firm of Singaporean firm RHTLaw Taylor Wessing's southeast Asia-focused legal network, ASEAN Plus Group.
The Thai merger comes six years after Nishimura & Asahi opened its Bangkok office, which is led by Japan-qualified M&A partner Hideshi Obara. Thailand-qualified M&A specialist Jirapong Sriwat is the only other partner in the Bangkok office.
"The [southeast Asia] region is one of the biggest trading partners globally for Japan, as well as one of Japan's most favoured destinations for foreign direct investment [FDI]," said Nishimura & Asahi's Tokyo-based managing partner, Masaki Hosaka, in a statement, adding that the merger will bring growth and returns on investment for clients and the firm in the region.
Japan is the top foreign direct investor in Thailand, investing more than $1.2 billion last year – 29% of total FDI into southeast Asia's second-largest economy – mostly in metal products and machinery, according to the Thailand Board of Investment. There are more than 1,700 Japanese businesses in Thailand, of which about 40% are in manufacturing, according to the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok.
Elsewhere in southeast Asia, Nishimura & Asahi has offices in Vietnam, Myanmar and Singapore, as well as an alliance in Indonesia with Walalangi & Partners. Last year, the firm opened an office in New York – the second top Japanese firm to do so, after Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu in 2010.
Nishimura & Asahi will also be the second of Japan's top firms, known as the Big Four, to merge with a Thai firm. Mori Hamada & Matsumoto was the first, merging its three-lawyer Bangkok office with 45-lawyer Chandler & Thong-ek Law Offices in 2017. Since then, Mori Hamada's Bangkok office, which operates as Chandler MHM, grew to have more than 60 lawyers; in 2018, Chandler MHM recruited a four-lawyer corporate and finance team from Clifford Chance's Bangkok office as the Magic Circle firm was closing the office.
The rest of the Big Four Japanese firms – Nagashima Ohno and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune – also have offices in Bangkok, since 2014 and 2016 respectively.
|Related Stories:
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View All‘Are You Not Profiting From Postmasters’ Misery?’—Politicians Grill HSF, Dentons on Post Office Conduct
'Not a Good Look'—FCA Fines Barclays £40M But Accused of Incompetence
Gibson Dunn Sued by Crypto Client After Lateral Hire Causes Conflict of Interest
Australian Corporations More Concerned About Class Actions Risk, HSF Report Finds
3 minute readTrending Stories
- 1Cars Reach Record Fuel Economy but Largely Fail to Meet Biden's EPA Standard, Agency Says
- 2How Cybercriminals Exploit Law Firms’ Holiday Vulnerabilities
- 3DOJ Asks 5th Circuit to Publish Opinion Upholding Gun Ban for Felon
- 4GEO Group Sued Over 2 Wrongful Deaths
- 5Revenue Up at Homegrown Texas Firms Through Q3, Though Demand Slipped Slightly
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250