Clifford Chance's former Tokyo head of its banking and finance practice has left the firm and moved in-house to a Japanese online brokerage.

Masayuki Okamoto joins Tokyo-listed Monex Group Inc., which acquired Japanese bitcoin exchange Coincheck Inc. last year, as general counsel and executive director. At Clifford Chance, he specialised in structured finance, merger and acquisition finance, and regulatory and investigation issues.

In 2017, he was part of the Clifford Chance team that advised a group of fund investors, including Singapore-based Effissimo Capital Management and New York-based Greenlight Capital, on a $5.4 billion share placement by Japanese tech giant Toshiba Corp.

Okamoto leaves Clifford Chance after 13 years with the firm. Previously, he was a partner at Magic Circle rival Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Clifford Chance has about 40 lawyers in Tokyo, including seven partners. Last year, partners Reiko Sakimura and Leng-Fong Lai, both capital markets specialists, were appointed co-managing partners of the Tokyo office. Partner Yusuke Abe now leads the office's banking and finance practice.

Okamoto is the latest partner in Tokyo to leave Big Law in recent years. In March, litigation partner David Case left Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and relocated back to the U.S. to start his own practice. In 2018, Kozo Sasaki, who co-led Linklaters' Tokyo capital markets practice, left to join Tokyo-listed entertainment agency Amuse Inc. as an executive officer; and technology partner Edward Johnson left Orrick to start his own law and consulting business. And in 2017, former Allen & Overy Tokyo managing partner Simon Black left the Magic Circle firm after 25 years to start a legal and technology consulting business.

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