Tokyo, March 30, 2007 – LAWFUEL – Law News Asia – Pioneering international lawyer Fumio Koma and a team of lawyers from Asahi Koma Law Offices as well as Janssen Foreign Law Office (the qualified joint enterprise of Asahi Koma Law Offices) will join Baker & McKenzie GJBJ Tokyo Aoyama Aoki Law Office (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise) as of April 1, 2007, the leading global law firm Baker & McKenzie announced today.

The team, led by Koma, includes fellow Japanese lawyers (bengoshi) Yasunori Hashiguchi and Shinichiro Abe and German lawyer Markus Janssen who will join as senior partners. The team also comprises three other partners as well as a group of associates and counsel. The team is the latest in a series of prominent Tokyo lawyers to join Baker & McKenzie as it strategically strengthens its position as Japan’s leading integrated law firm and as the premier global law firm operating in all of the world’s major financial centers; enhancing its European practices at Baker & McKenzie Tokyo will create one of the largest European teams in Japan.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome this highly respected team to our Firm. This is a significant enhancement to our practice,” said John Conroy, Chairman of the Executive Committee. “The team’s highly regarded domestic practice and its strong international orientation are an excellent fit that will deepen our capabilities in Tokyo and globally.”

The liberalization of bar rules permitting integration of Japanese and foreign law practices has created new opportunities for a growing number of lawyers in Japan to develop their practices as advisers to domestic and multinational companies operating both within Japan and across borders outside the world’s second largest economy.

“There is intense competition today in Tokyo for internationally oriented legal talent to serve the growing volume of inbound and outbound opportunities in Japan,” said Jeremy Pitts, Managing Partner of Baker & McKenzie’s Tokyo office.

“Our Firm’s ability to attract this outstanding team from Asahi Koma and Janssen Foreign Law Office is a testament to Baker & McKenzie’s unique ability to provide compelling opportunities to both Japanese and foreign lawyers in Tokyo who advise major corporations operating in the global economy.”

Commenting on joining the Firm, Fumio Koma said, “We are very excited about our move to Baker & McKenzie. With the Firm’s global platform, we will be able to extend our international practices including but not limited to M&A, intellectual property and international business restructuring to a global scope and better represent our clients in multi-jurisdictional transactions. Also, together with Baker & McKenzie, we will help build and substantially enhance the Euro-Japan Group for its clients and for its team in Japan and Europe.”

Fumio Koma’s practice focuses on international commercial affairs, finance, M&A and anti-trust law, with particular emphasis on domestic and international mergers and acquisitions. He has extensive experience in representing banks and security companies, chemical companies, healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, hotels, and satellite broadcasting companies and various other manufacturers and companies. He received his B.A. in economics from Waseda University in 1971, his LL.M from the Law School of Washington University in 1982, and is admitted in Japan and New York.

Yasunori Hashiguchi’s practice focuses on intellectual property, entertainment and sports law. He has advised world leading software producers on software license agreements, and negotiated key contracts for the media rights, sponsorship rights and licensing rights for global sports events, as well as handling M&A cases in the Media world. He received his LL.B. from the University of Tokyo in 1981, and his LL.M. from the University of Washington in 1991.

Shinichiro Abe handles business restructuring, insolvency law and litigation. As a specialist of Japanese and international business restructuring and insolvency law (and associate- professor at Chuo University Law School) he is highly sought after as an advisor for transactions (including M&A) and structures requiring insolvency protection and solutions. He received his LL.B. and LL.M. from Waseda University in 1987 and 1989 respectively, and an LL.M. from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law in 2001.

Markus Janssen has more than 17 years of legal experience in Japan and established Janssen Foreign Law Office, a qualified joint enterprise with Asahi Koma. With extensive contract and transaction experience in various industries he focuses on foreign direct investment of European enterprises in Japan, but also assists Japanese enterprises in important projects in Europe. He has been qualified in Germany since 1985, and has been registered as a foreign lawyer in Japan since 2000.

Washington, D.C., April 4, 2007 – LawFuel – Securities Law News – The SEC’s Commissioners today endorsed the recommendations of the agency’s professional staff to eliminate waste and duplication in the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance exercise, in a move that will particularly benefit smaller companies. The Commissioners urged the SEC staff to continue to work closely with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) to make the internal controls provisions of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 more efficient and cost effective.

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, PCAOB audit standards must first be approved by the SEC and cannot take effect without a vote of the Commission. The Commission expects the new PCAOB standard will be submitted for SEC review by the end of May or early June, in time for the 2007 financial statement audits.

“These needed improvements in the Sarbanes-Oxley process are especially urgent for smaller companies, who will begin complying with Section 404 this year,” said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. “The result of the new auditing standard for 404, together with the SEC’s new guidance to management, should make the internal control review and audit more efficient by focusing the effort on what truly matters to the integrity of the financial statements,” he added.

The Commission’s open meeting featured presentations by Mark W. Olson, Chairman of the PCAOB, which is writing a new standard for auditor compliance under Section 404, and Jeffrey Steinhoff, Managing Director for Financial Management and Assurance of the Government Accountability Office, which has studied the impact of Section 404 on smaller public companies. The SEC’s Office of the Chief Accountant also provided the Commission its analysis of the public comments on the PCAOB proposal and the Commission’s proposed guidance for public company management.

The Commission’s direction to its staff will focus the remaining work in four areas: aligning the PCAOB’s new auditing standard (AS-5) with the SEC’s proposed new management guidance under Section 404, particularly with regard to prescriptive requirements, definitions and terms; scaling the 404 audit to account for the particular facts and circumstances of companies, particularly smaller companies, encouraging auditors to use professional judgment in the 404 process, particularly in using risk-assessment; and following a principles-based approach to determining when and to what extent the auditor can use the work of others.

The Commission’s open meeting was a continuation of the collaborative process simultaneously announced by the SEC and the PCAOB in May 2006. Today’s actions will help insure that the SEC can swiftly approve the new audit standard when the PCAOB transmits it for agency consideration, as is expected in coming weeks.