Vanguard Lawyers Tokyo

The firm: Vanguard Lawyers Tokyo specializes in providing Japanese legal services to a broad range of multinational clients in the areas of Japanese labour and employment law, dispute resolution and investigations, and corporate matters. Our experience in recent years includes working on a variety of challenging, high profile and complex mandates. We provide creative solutions, and proactive and practical advice to multinational clients to navigate complex Japanese legal issues.

Areas of practice
Labour and employment: Our labour and employment team has deep and extensive knowledge in the areas of labour and employment law that are unique in Japan and can provide you with practical and strategic advice on how to deal with issues that arise “only in Japan”.

A full service practice: Our practice focuses primarily on providing Japanese labour and employment law advice to global companies with operations in Japan. We regularly deal with in-house counsel and HR professionals based in various jurisdictions, including the US, the UK, continental Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo. We advise our global clients on all aspects of employment related issues. We understand the needs of global clients and focus on providing proactive advice and creative ideas, rather than just pointing out the risks under Japanese law.

Key areas of work

• Representing clients in Japanese courts in relation to various employment disputes
• Providing advice in relation to the management of poor performers
• Providing advice on overtime issues
• Internal investigations and advice relating to workplace harassment such as power harassment and sexual harassment
• Providing advice on redundancies
• Providing advice on how to deal with union issues and representing clients in collective bargaining with unions.

Dispute resolution and investigations: We have represented clients in Japanese courts on a wide variety of complex commercial litigation, many of which involved cutting-edge legal issues. Our practice focuses on providing Japanese litigation and investigation services to global companies. We advise our global clients on all aspects of Japanese dispute resolution.

Litigation in Japanese courts and international arbitration: We have represented global clients in a wide variety of litigation in Japan, such as representing a financial institution in various disputes involving highly complex financial instruments, representing a global media firm in various lawsuits involving complex Japanese legal issues such as the right to privacy, defamation and the right to be forgotten, and representing global firms in various lawsuits seeking to recover damages resulting from fraudulent activities. We also have represented a broad range of clients in various employment lawsuits concerning various matters such as redundancies, termination for poor performance, overtime claims, harassment claims, employee misconduct issues, leaking of confidential information, etc. Furthermore, we represent clients in international arbitration, and Akiko Yamakawa serves as an arbitrator for JCAA arbitrations conducted in English.

Investigations: We regularly assist clients with internal and regulatory investigations involving a wide variety of issues such as employee misconduct, fraud, and regulatory breaches, including regulations concerning financial institutions and life science businesses. We also have extensive experience in dealing with investigations with a cross-border element, and we are fully aware of the potential pitfalls and how to minimize risks in such investigations, given the lack of the concept of privilege in Japan and other aspects unique to Japan.

Corporate: Our corporate team acts on behalf of international clients in various industries and advises on a wide range of corporate issues including corporate governance, M&A and corporate finance. Based on the team’s experiences of working at the Tokyo offices of leading global law firms, we are able to provide practical and strategic advice to resolve various issues from the perspectives of both Japanese and international mindsets.