East Asia - Japan

Sidley Austin Nishikawa Foreign Law Joint Enterprise

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The team at Sidley Austin Nishikawa Foreign Law Joint Enterprise, co-led by Tomoki Ishiara, has carved out a niche advising new entrants to the energy and infrastructure industries. Practice co-head Daniel Lin is a ‘very skillful lawyer’ in the energy sector, advising clients on cross-border energy and infrastructure transactions. As a New York-trained lawyer, senior managing associate Shigeyuki Ito strengthens the team’s international reach, with his focus on global financial services; the group handles clients’ investments in the sector throughout Southeast Asia and China. The group works with the firm’s teams across various practice areas, from regulatory to funds, to advise energy and infrastructure clients on an international scale.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘Sidley has a lot of experience and enough knowledge to support sponsor side (although Sidley assists lender side as well) in a wide variety of energy businesses. Their know-how covers local practices throughout the globe, and is kept updated, so their explanation to us is always well-tuned considering the background of clients. Sidley also works as an excellent negotiator between counsels.’
  • ‘Daniel Lin's overall assistance is efficient and effective. He can lead Sidley's inter-office team well, which is useful when we need to consider more than one matters concurrently including local issues (such as regulations) or multi-national issues (such as competition).'

  • 'Shigeyuki Ito is a talented lawyer who advises based on his multi-national experience.’

  • ‘Daniel Lin has lots of experience in energy sector and is a very skillful lawyer in that field.’

  • ‘They offer realistic advice from the client's perspective. They have a lot of experience with various types of deals and know many examples that can be used as references. They work efficiently under the control of their partners when working in teams.’

  • ‘They are always creative and offer appropriate solutions to tough issues from the customer's viewpoint. They understand our values and thought patterns well and bring us the results we want without detailed instructions. They have strong logical thinking skills and are less likely to concede in negotiations with opposing counsel. Their markup on contracts is minimal and they do not waste time. Sidley Tokyo's high performance would not be possible without the guidance of and oversight by its partner, Daniel Lin.’

  • ‘The team is always helpful and swift to support our deals with professional views and opinions, detailed explanation, options to take, etc. The team also has lots of experience, enough to provide good recommendation as compared to past examples, market standards.’

  • 'Daniel Lin is an outstanding lawyer with capabilities in every aspect to support our transactions, with swift responses and thoughtful opinions. What makes Daniel Lin more outstanding is his good command of Japanese as well.’

Key clients

  • Sembcorp Industries Pte. Ltd.

Work highlights

  • Advised Sembcorp on its sale of 100% of its Indian coal-fired power asset portfolio (2.6 GW), for approximately SG$2.1bn, to a consortium led by Oman Investment Corporation and the Ministry of Defense Pension Fund.

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Daniel Lin, Tomoki Ishiara

Other key lawyers

Shigeyuki Ito