Mayer Brown has hired banking and finance specialist Shri Maski and corporate expert Gordon Palmquist as partners at its recently opened Tokyo office from Ashurst and Shearman & Sterling, respectively.

Also hired from the Ashurst office is senior associate Tomo Adachi. Adachi and Maski are set to be reunited with Rupert Burrows, the Tokyo office head for Mayer Brown, who was at Ashurst for about 20 years. 

Maski is experienced in banking and financing transactions, including project financings, and advises on complex projects to lenders, including export credit agencies in Europe and Asia, sponsors, and public authorities in several sectors, including energy, mining and infrastructure. During his 10-year-stint at Ashurst, he was seconded at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the Export-Import Bank of Korea.

Meanwhile, Palmquist, who was an associate at Shearman, started his career at Mayer Brown’s Chicago headquarters. He focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and private investment funds, and advises Japanese corporations, insurance companies and other financial institutions on outbound M&A, sales of overseas subsidiaries and private equity and venture capital investments. 

“My new colleagues will play a pivotal role in helping to fortify Mayer Brown’s relationships with its Japanese clients by drawing on the firm’s strength in project and other finance, energy and mining, M&A transactions, private investment funds matters, disputes and investigations, and other areas such as intellectual property and regulatory matters,” said Burrows in a statement.

Mayer Brown’s expansion in Tokyo comes as some firms are reducing their Japan presence, with all of last year’s five largest international firms – barring Linklaters – shrinking, according to the ALB Top 50 Largest Law Firms 2017 ranking.