Tokyo, September 3, 2007 – LAWFUEL – The Legal Newswire – Baker & McKenzie GJBJ Tokyo Aoyama Aoki Koma Law Office (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise) is pleased to announce that two new Partners have joined the Firm to enhance its Dispute Resolution Practice.
Haig Oghigian joined the Firm as a Partner on September 1, 2007. He joins from the Tokyo office of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP.
Hideyuki Kobayashi also joined the Firm as a Partner on July 1 from Anderson Mori & Tomotsune.
Mr. Oghigian is a dispute resolution professional with many years experience representing Japanese and international clients in the fields of international commercial arbitration, particularly with cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and licensing and distribution agreements. He is ranked in Asia for Dispute Resolution by Chambers & Partners Global Guide 2007, in Japan for Dispute Resolution by Asia-Pacific Legal 500 (2007), and for Commercial Arbitration by Euromoney Expert Guides.
His arbitration practice is enriched by both his experience in government, serving as a foreign service officer at the Canadian Embassy in Japan for five years, and his extensive corporate commercial background. Fluent in English, French and Japanese, he has regularly appeared as counsel and arbitrator with International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Japan Commercial Arbitration Association (JCAA), American Arbitration Association (AAA), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), British Columbia International Commercial Arbitration Centre (BCICAC) and the Philippine Dispute Resolution Centre. He is also the author of several articles which have appeared in Mealey’s Arbitration Journal, The Asia Dispute Review, The Journal of International Arbitration and The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Arbitration and is a contributing writer to the Simon & Schuster book, The Law of Commerce in Japan.
Mr. Oghigian lectures on international arbitration at the University of Tokyo.
Mr Kobayashi has extensive experience acting for clients in relation to international litigation, arbitration and product liability and has served as a professor at several major universities in Japan. He currently lectures at Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy.
Mr. Kobayashi advises the Japanese government on financial reform as a member of the Finance Council of the Ministry of Finance. He has represented the foreign government for more than 20 years regarding litigation issues arising from Japan’s antitrust law. He is also the author of several books and articles on topics including civil procedure, international civil procedure and bankruptcy law.
“With the resurgence of the Japanese economy, there has been a dramatic growth in cross border work involving Japan – both outbound investments by Japanese companies and inbound investments by foreign companies,” said Jeremy Pitts, Managing Partner of the Tokyo office. “It is vital that we provide our clients with the full range of services necessary to manage these increasingly complex cross border relationships.”
“The addition of Mr. Oghigian and Mr. Kobayashi meets this demand,” added Jeremy Pitts. “They are both highly experienced lawyers with unmatched expertise in risk management and cross border disputes work. We are also confident that they will be able to work closely with our existing Tokyo disputes practice team and our global disputes practice group to help our clients not only manage the complexities of cross border litigation and alternative dispute resolution procedures but also to manage dispute related risk through corporate compliance, crisis management and risk management practices.”
Mr. Oghigian received his BA, with honors, in 1976 and his LL.B in 1979 from McGill University in Canada. He subsequently undertook graduate studies in Japanese law at the East Asian Legal Studies program at the Harvard Law School and received a diploma in Japanese
Language Studies from the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute in Yokohama,
Japan. He also holds a diploma in International Commercial Arbitration from Keble College, Oxford University.
Mr. Kobayashi received his LL.B from Tokyo University in 1974 and was a visiting scholar at Yale and Michigan Law School from 1982-1983.
