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Temple Law School co-sponsors visit of ABA International Division delegation, which will include Justice Stephen Breyer: Two International Law Seminars

Temple Law School is proud to co-sponsor the visit to Tokyo of a delegation from the ABA International Legal Exchange Program. The delegation includes United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

The ILEX trip aims to promote the exchange of ideas on the practice of law and on cross-border legal issues and to establish relationships with a view toward cooperation. To further these goals, the ABA and its co-sponsors have organized the following two seminars on Wednesday, July 9th.

10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Keeping the Global Capital Markets Safe Yet Competitive: The Role of Lawyers, Regulators and Judges

This panel will compare the financial crises in Japan in 1998 and in the United States in 2008. It will discuss whether the risks that both financial systems faced were analogous and whether we have learned enough from our past experience. It will compare how regulators, the Bank of Japan and the legal industry acted to save the Japanese financial systems to how their U.S. counterparts have recently acted. The panel will also consider the broader role of trade associations and standard documentation in mitigating risk in the absence of global legislation or regulation. It will also discuss the challenges confronting dispute settlement in the international capital markets.

• Program Chair:
  Akihiro Wani (Linklaters, Tokyo)
• Experts:
  Jeffrey B. Golden (ABA International Chair; Allen & Overy LLP, London);
  Akiko Kimura (Anderson, Mori & Tomotsune, Tokyo);
  Masamichi Kono (Financial Services Agency, Tokyo);
  Masao Okawa (Bank of Japan, Tokyo);
  Thierry Porté (President and CEO, Shinsei Bank, Tokyo)

2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Evolving Japanese Attitudes to International Arbitration and Litigation for Dispute Resolution

This program will focus on the recent experience of Japanese companies and of international lawyers in Japan in assisting Japanese companies to resolve international commercial disputes. Japanese companies have tended to avoid litigation and other dispute resolution proceedings, both domestically and internationally. Many practitioners and business people believe that Japanese dislike, disdain, or fear litigation and formal legal proceedings for resolving disputes. Many see Japanese cultural attitudes as responsible, but others assign responsibility to the difficulties and inefficiencies of Japanese litigation practices and to the slow and expensive pursuit of Japanese judicial remedies. The results of the recent Japan Commercial Arbitration Association's survey of attitudes to the use of arbitration and other means of resolving international commercial disputes should provide a focal point for panelists to discuss the current experience and attitudes among Japanese commercial players.

• Program Chairs:
  Robert Grondine (White & Case LLP, Tokyo);
  Professor Pauline Reich (Waseda University, Tokyo)
• Moderator:
  Professor Louise Ellen Teitz (Roger Williams School of Law, Bristol, Rhode Island)
• Experts:
  Robert Grondine (White & Case LLP, Tokyo);
  Haig Oghigian (Baker & McKenzie, Tokyo);
  Yoshimi Ohara (Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, Tokyo);
  Kazumichi Matsuki (Mitsubishi Corporation, Tokyo);
  Professor Yasuhei Taniguchi (Senshu University Law School, Tokyo)

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