If your company having headquarter in US starts a transaction with Japanese companies or acquires Japanese companies, you will execute contracts for those transactions in English.
Let me give you an example. If you were a hotel operator, you would now be dealing with management contract negotiation with Japanese property owners. You want to rebrand the hotel in Japan. In this case, you can execute the contract in English. Then, you might ask the Japanese business partner to stipulate the original contract version is in English and the Japanese version is just for reference.
Meantime, you have to review both versions of it since if dispute happens, Japanese court will refer Japanese version basically since judicial procedure is done in Japanese. You can allege that the translation is wrong in the court while it’s not easy sometime.
To deal with this kind of situation, you can negotiate with Japanese companies in English if it’s possible to negotiate with them in English. Your company’s in-house counsel might deal with those.
Meantime, Japan is Japanese language society. You might have to negotiate in Japanese. Or you might have to use Japanese version for the negotiation and translate it into English for Japanese business partner side.
Then, translation issue will pop up. Even if it’s written in English, contracts have certain amount of length with technical terms. It might be necessary to make it short or clear to avoid misunderstanding. However, you have to do for both versions of the contract.
In this case, if you have a bargaining power, you can choose English for negotiation. This will work well for you. But still, you have to make Japanese version for Japanese business partners.
Also Read:
Negotiating Japanese Contracts in English: Navigating Legal Agreements in a Global Context
Find the Best Law firm in Japan to deals with Foreign leagal Issues.
This process will require not just language skills but legal proficiency. Legal term is quite technical and intrinsically domestic. It’s quite few academic materials to learn this area called international private law. There are not many lawyers who could deal with this area. You might hire a Japanese lawyer with foreign qualifications to deal with this kind of case.
However, most of those lawyers belong to big laws. If your project size is huge, you can go to the big laws. While, if it’s midsize or small one, it will cost too much to hire those lawyers.
In Japan, there are quite few law firms which have lawyers speaking in English. On top of that, some of them just do family law practice or inheritance case. Not all of them could deal with corporate deals.
Hattori Law has a lawyer qualified in Japan and New York, USA. He has sufficient experience to deal with corporate cross-border deals in his career. We will surely support your business.
Please kindly feel free to contact us.
Hattori Law
We have expertise to support foreign investors in Japan. As you may know, Japan is literally “Japanese language society”, meaning, almost everything should be done in Japanese. This is obvious but you might feel it so much when you start your business here in Japan.
Or you might need business consultant for your Japan business since it’s a little bit different from American or European one.
Hattori Law has a bilingual lawyer qualified in Japan and New York, USA. We have experience to support various companies including construction company, fund, startup, entertainment company, and so forth. Our lawyer has business and public sector experience. We could support you with business, legal, and public perspective.
We do our best to be the right law firm for you.
Contact Us: https://www.hrtlawfirm.com/contact-us/
Level 8, Tri-Seven Roppongi, 7-7-7, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032, Japan
Tel: +81-3-6629-3520
FAQs
International lawyer is defined as a lawyer dealing with cross border case in Japan. Some of them have been admitted as an attorney at law not only in Japan but also in the United States, and so forth.
International law firm is defined as a law firm primarily dealing with cross border case in Japan.
Quick response and its preciseness should be the key for the best international law firm. It’s necessary to collect and select appropriate information for legal business judgment from limited resources in international business world. If the law firm responds quickly and correctly, the law firm should be the best international law firm for you.
It doesn’t matter whether the law firm has expertise in specific practice areas. Rather than that, various ranking firms weigh rankings in each practice areas.
The international law firm provides service to organize your business scheme, draft contracts, or negotiate with business counterparts for cross border deals. Sometimes, the firm cooperate with local law firms for providing appropriate legal service.
If you expand your business from foreign countries to Japan, you may have a plenty of trouble because of the differences of regulations, language, and so forth. If you have international law firm in Japan for your business, the firm will provide you sufficient explanation for business progress since they have plural viewpoint, meaning, Japanese viewpoint and foreign viewpoints.
It really depends while if the law firm has an international lawyer with law degree and legal qualification in US with experiences to deal with cross border business, the law firm should have sufficient experience to deal with international legal matters.
It will speak in Japanese and English. In Japan, almost everything should be done in Japanese. If you don’t feel any stress speaking in English with your lawyer, the lawyer should be a nicer choice for you.
It has easy access to legal updates regarding cross border legal developments via international lawyer’s organization, and so forth.
What is the approach of the best international law firm in Japan when it comes to communication and client service?
Hourly rate fee arrangement is a typical way at Hattori Law.