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About Kaori Yamada

Kaori Yamada specialises in all areas of competition law as well as investigation and compliance related to “ABC” issues, including multi-jurisdictional investigation defence, merger reviews, and advice on competitor cooperation and distribution issues, across a broad range of industries, in particular the chemical, consumer goods, telecom, technology, energy, transport and healthcare sectors.

She has extensive specialist experience practicing in Tokyo and London. Having previously worked at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Treaties Bureau and Economic Affairs Bureau (between 1999 and 2005), her deep understanding of working effectively with the government makes her a trusted adviser for Japanese companies on their complex communications with the authorities.

Kaori has published a broad range of publications in the area of competition law, and is active as a speaker in various expert panels. She is fluent in English and Japanese.

 

Recent work

  • Advising a number of cartel investigations in front of the JFTC, European Commission and other overseas regulators.
  • Advising on a number of global compliance programmes for Japanese companies.
  • Advising Intel on its acquisition of Altera for the JFTC merger review.
  • Advising Lenovo on Japanese antitrust aspects of notification filing with the JFTC on the company’s JV with NEC Corporation and an acquisition of IBM’s x86 server business.
  • Advising Nordic Capital on global merger filings for the sale of Nycomed to Takeda.
  • Advising a number of pharmaceutical companies on co-marketing arrangements in Japan.

Qualifications

Education

  • University of Tokyo, Japan (Bachelor of Law)
  • Queen's College, Oxford University, UK (MJuris)
  • London School of Economics, UK (LLM)
  • Legal Research and Training Institute of the Supreme Court of Japan

Professional memberships

  • Member of the Dai-ni Tokyo Bar Association