Japanese law firm Atsumi & Sakai has continued to grow its international capabilities with the opening of an office in Brussels to be led by antitrust partner Etsuko Kameoka, who joined the firm from European Union firm Geradin Partners in March 2023.

“The Brussels office will enable us to support our clients' European business development, in collaboration with our European offices in London and Frankfurt,” the firm said in a statement.

The Brussels office focuses on EU competition law, while also providing advice on a wide range of other matters involving EU law, the firm added. Brussels is commonly referred to as the EU’s competition law capital and is home to the region’s top antitrust regulator, the European Commission.

Apart from antitrust law, the firm’s Brussels outpost will focus on digital business operator regulations, EU trade law, intellectual property protection, personal data protection, environmental law, cross-border M&A and dispute resolution procedures, the firm said.

"As EU laws and regulations are the strictest in the world, many Japanese companies use them their standards of goods and operations so that they won't meet any problem in other regions. We have many inquiries from clients for that purpose," Kameoka said.

Kameoka has over two decades of EU competition law experience working at Van Bael & Bellis before joining Geradin Partners in 2022.

Japanese firms have been looking to follow the movement of the country’s businesses into the U.S. and European markets in recent times. Anderson Mori & Tomotsune launched a Brussels office earlier this year.

Last year, TMI Associates opened an office in Paris, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto established a presence in New York, and Miura & Partners announced plans for new offices in London and San Francisco.