Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) made headlines in 2017 by pulling off mergers in the US and Australia, but 2018 has started with the firm retrenching internationally, closing in Kazakhstan and Abu Dhabi while Paul Hastings raided its Japanese corporate team.
NRF Tokyo head of corporate, M&A and securities Eiji Kobayashi joined Paul Hastings’ Japanese base in mid-January, with a four-person team, including two associates, one paralegal and one secretary, to follow him a few weeks later.
The team’s departure leaves NRF with three Tokyo-based banking partners, while corporate and project finance partner Chris Viner will split his time between London and the Japanese capital.
Kobayashi, who typically advises Japanese corporates on outbound investment and M&A deals, told Legal Business that Paul Hastings’ ‘very strong corporate practice’ attracted him, along with the US firm’s compliance and investigation capabilities, which he described as the ‘second pillar’ of his work.
‘North America is a big target for a lot of outbound deals. Paul Hastings has a great track record in M&A in Asia and a long history in Tokyo. I am not just thinking about tomorrow, I am looking four, five years down the line and I want to be in a very strong firm that has a history of success, especially in Asia.’
Kobayashi’s clients include Central Japan Railway Company, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, homebuilder Daiwa House Industry and Nisshin Seifun Group. He joined NRF at the beginning of 2015 from Japan’s largest firm, 500-lawyer Nishimura & Asahi, where he co-led the top-ranked cross-border transactions group. A US-qualified lawyer, he previously worked in the Houston and Tokyo offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Including the new hires, Paul Hastings will have 13 lawyers including four partners in the Japanese capital where it opened in 1988, mostly in corporate, save for one partner and one associate in litigation.
Elsewhere, NRF closed its Kazakhstan operation in January after Almaty-based partner Yerzhan Kumarov left to establish a domestic practice, KM & Partners. While NRF will maintain a ‘working relationship’ with Kumarov, Martin Scott, Europe, Middle East and Asia managing partner, said the parties ‘mutually agreed that a full-service offering was no longer required by Norton Rose Fulbright in Kazakhstan’.
NRF also announced in January that it had closed its Abu Dhabi office last December to focus on Dubai – a relatively common trend among global law firms aggressively expanding their footprint over the past decade and investing in the Middle East on the back of the oil boom in the 2000s. In 2015 and 2016, Simmons & Simmons, Latham & Watkins, Vinson & Elkins and Herbert Smith Freehills took similar steps.
In the case of NRF, partner Paul Mansouri and two other lawyers were moved to Dubai, along with one of the business services staff, while two other support staff were made redundant.
‘In the past few years, the majority of our activity has increasingly regionalised,’ according to head of Middle East Deirdre Walker. ‘As a result, it makes better business sense to consolidate our resources in Dubai.’