Mori Hamada & Matsumoto received awards at the FT Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers Awards 2022 hosted by the Financial Times held on May 12, 2022 in the “INNOVATION IN CREATING NEW STANDARDS” category with appreciating IPO deal handled by Katsumasa Suzuki, our Partner.

Katsumasa Suzuki advised the first-ever IPO deal in which the issuer successfully attracted cornerstone investor by designating allocation of the offered shares, which  requested innovative advice relating to gun-jumping rule and fair allocation rule and the approach has been replicated in other recent IPOs and contributes for better pricing in IPOs.

Reiya Nakano, our partner, is also highly commended as one of the shortlisted “Change Makers”, the professionals who have developed new products and pioneered fresh skills in their firms.

Reiya Nakano set up a legal tech team within the firm to promote the use of technologies in legal practice, and worked with legal tech companies to develop solutions. One example is Legalscape, a legal research service similar to Reuters-owned Westlaw, but for Japan. The firm provided access to some of its data and helped test the tool.