Asian Legal Business has announced the list of finalists for the 11th annual Japan Law Awards 2015, which will be held at the Ritz Carlton Hotel Tokyo on Thursday, June 18.

Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu and Mori Hamada & Matsumoto are the frontrunners, with a total of 36 and 30 nominations, respectively. Fellow Big Four Japanese law firms Nishimura & Asahi and Anderson Mori & Tomotsune have 25 and 24 nods, respectively.

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett leads the international law firm pack with 21 nominations, while Sullivan & Cromwell and Morrison & Foerster are close behind with 17 nominations each. Davis Polk & Wardwell has 10 nominations.

Among the in-house teams, JP Morgan Securities Japan and Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities have four nominations each, including the Innovative In-House Team of the Year and the prestigious Japan In-House Lawyer of the Year prizes. Goldman Sachs Japan and IBM have two nominations each, while a number of other in-house teams, including Softbank, KDDI, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Itochu Corp, are also finalists.

The ALB Japan Law Awards 2015 covers a total of 30 awards, and features new categories in the areas of Banking and Finance and Regulatory and Compliance, as well as an award for the Emerging Law Firm of the Year. Furthermore, in order to recognise the role of accounting firms in the celebrated deals, the event has introduced a new Accountancy Deal Firm of the Year award.

The full list of finalists, as well as more information on seat and table reservation, can be found here.

For further information on this event, the finalist list or potential attendance, please contact Colin Wang at colin.wang@thomsonreuters.com.