International

Our international practice includes advising foreign clients and their Japanese subsidiaries on Japanese law, as well as advising Japanese clients on foreign law in collaboration with foreign law firms. When we advise foreign clients on Japanese law, we often prepare our advice in English at their request, typically in important matters that need to be reported to a global or regional head office. When we advise Japanese clients on foreign law, we assist our clients in controlling foreign legal costs and ensuring the quality of the foreign legal work, especially by selecting a law firm which is appropriate for the work in question from our network of foreign law firms with whom we have collaborative relationships.

Our network of foreign law firms, based on a non-binding "best friends policy", includes law firms in China (Jin Mao P.R.C. Lawyers), Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and other ASEAN countries, the Americas and Europe. With some foreign law firms, we carry out mutual dispatches of lawyers to strengthen our collaborative relationships. Through this network and these relationships, we provide our clients with efficient and thorough one-stop legal service in cross-border matters, in close collaboration with foreign law firms.

With law firms in North America, the UK, the EU, and China, our collaborative relationships have been well established for many years, and recently we have been paying particular attention to ensuring that we have strong ties in ASEAN countries because of their growing importance in Japanese business. We have been continuously exchanging attorneys on dispatch arrangements with the Singapore firm Drew & Napier, as well as strengthening relationships in other ASEAN countries through their Drew Network Asia and other local firms in ASEAN countries. Our network is especially strong when it comes to providing one-stop service to clients doing business in both Japan and ASEAN countries.

In addition we have joined the non-binding international organizations TerraLex¹ and Privacy Rules², in order to ensure that we can collaborate with trustworthy law firms at all times in all jurisdictions, while adhering to "best friends" as our basic policy.

¹TerraLex（https://www.terralex.org/tlglobal/Home）
TerraLex is a worldwide law firm network of over 20,000 attorneys from more than 100 countries which is particularly strong in matters where coordination across many jurisdictions is required, as well as matters in which advice is required in countries with small economies. Iwata Godo is a member firm in Japan. In multinational projects and disputes we advise foreign clients on Japanese law, and assist Japanese clients in obtaining foreign legal advice through the network.

²Privacy Rules（https://www.privacyrules.com/）
Privacy Rules is an international organization of data privacy lawyers, cyber security firms and IR firms from around the world. Members from different countries collaborate on incidents and issues related to data privacy and IoT technology, develop corporate training programs, and establish mechanisms to respond to data leakages simultaneously and promptly in multiple countries, including reporting to authorities and public announcements. Iwata Godo, one of the founding members, collaborates regularly with other member firms.