Japan Practice

Asian Legal Business (ALB) has named Jenner & Block's Japan Practice Foreign Law Firm of the Year in the 2026 Japan Law Awards.

Jenner & Block’s Japan Practice has been recognized as one of five finalists for the Asian Legal Business (ALB) 2026 Japan Law Awards in the category of Japan Practice Foreign Law Firm of the Year.

In a significant development for corporate practitioners, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision on February 27, 2026, that brings long-awaited clarity to one of the more complex areas of deal-making: transactions involving conflicted fiduciaries, including controlling stockholders. In Rutledge v. Clearway Energy Group LLC, the court upheld the constitutionality of Senate Bill 21 (SB 21), a set of amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law enacted in March 2025. The rulin

Welcome to the May 2026 edition of the Jenner & Block Japan Newsletter, a publication containing updates about legal developments in the United States that may be noteworthy to our clients and other leaders in the Japanese legal and business communities.

For much of the last year, the Trump Administration has signaled its opposition to state AI regulation that, in its view, could stifle innovation and impede the country’s ability to win the AI race. In its most recent salvo, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday, April 24, intervened in a lawsuit brought by xAI challenging Colorado’s SB24-205 (the Colorado AI Act). The DOJ alleges that the Colorado AI Act violates the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution, both by compelling AI d

Last month, Washington state passed Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1155 (SB 1155), legislation that bans virtually all non-compete agreements and significantly narrows the scope of permissible non-solicitation agreements in the state. The new law takes effect on June 30, 2027, and applies retroactively to all existing non-compete agreements, rendering them void and unenforceable regardless of when they were entered into. Employers are required to make reasonable efforts to provide written notic

On March 31, 2026, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued new guidance (“Guidance”) on “Sham Transactions and Sanctions Evasion.” This Guidance confirms and formalizes what a series of recent enforcement actions has made clear: while OFAC’s long-standing 50% Rule is still in place, it is a floor, not a ceiling, to corporate diligence. According to the Guidance, it is important to look “beyond legal formalities to underlying practical and economic realities.” T

On March 17, 2026, the Division of Enforcement of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a no-action letter (Letter) to Phantom Technologies Inc., a developer of self-custodial crypto asset wallet software, confirming that if Phantom adhered to certain conditions the Division would not recommend enforcement action for failure to register as an introducing broker.[1]The Letter represents a trend at the CFTC to shift toward a more lenient regulatory approach to certain service prov

On March 20, 2026, the White House released a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, briefly recommending a set of legislative priorities for Congress across seven subject areas to “win[] the AI race.” The framework represents the clearest statement to date of the Administration’s ambitions for congressional action and offers a sense of where legislative engagement will likely focus over the coming year, including on preemption, child safety, and scaling infrastructure. But it is

On March 10, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first-ever Department-wide Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (CEP) for criminal matters, superseding all component-specific and US Attorney’s Office-specific corporate enforcement policies currently in effect. The new policy extends the framework the Criminal Division previously introduced in May 2025 to all DOJ components that handle corporate criminal matters, with the exception of antitrust violations un

Jenner & Block Partner Miwa Shoda has been ranked in the 2026 Chambers Global guide in two categories: Litigation – Foreign Experts (Japan) and Dispute Resolution – Expertise Based Abroad (Japan).

An Ohio jury found Goodyear liable for misappropriating five trade secrets related to self-inflating tires in 2022, awarding the plaintiff, Coda Development, $2.8 million in compensatory damages and $61.2 million in punitive damages. Coda Dev. s.r.o. v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 160 F.4th 1350, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2025). Following trial, however, the district court threw out the verdict and found in favor of Goodyear because, among other things, Coda had failed to sufficiently define its trade sec

The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Barry v. DePuy Synthes Companies reversed a trial court’s exclusion of two expert witnesses, further blurring the line for practitioners between the court’s gatekeeping role and the jury’s role in assessing the weight of the evidence and the credibility of witnesses. The Barry decision split the court 2–1, with Judge Stark authoring the majority opinion and Judge Prost dissenting.

In Giuliano v. Grenfell-Gardner et al. (Del. Ch. Sept. 2, 2025), the Delaware Court of Chancery considered fiduciary oversight claims under the Caremark doctrine arising from alleged deficiencies in board- and officer-level oversight at pharmaceutical company Teligent, Inc. The court denied, in substantial part, a motion to dismiss claims alleging that former directors and officers failed to implement and maintain systems to oversee FDA compliance, a risk characterized as central to the company’

Welcome to the February 2026 edition of the Jenner & Block Japan Newsletter, a publication containing updates about legal developments in the United States that may be noteworthy to our clients and other leaders in the Japanese legal and business communities.

With the December 18, 2025 confirmation of Chris Pilkerton as the Assistant Treasury Secretary for Investment Security, the Trump administration’s “America First Investment Policy” is in full swing. This policy articulates a goal of welcoming foreign investment in the United States, while remaining vigilant of new and evolving threats that can accompany such investment.

On January 29, 2026, the SEC and CFTC jointly announced Project Crypto, transforming what had been an internal SEC initiative launched in 2025 into a landmark inter-agency collaboration to unify digital asset regulation in the United States. This expansion of Project Crypto into a joint effort directly addresses two longstanding problems that have plagued the digital asset industry: the persistent uncertainty about which agency has jurisdiction over particular products, and the potential for tur

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Fraud Section released its 2025 Year-in-Review (YIR) last week, revealing an expanded enforcement blueprint that suggests heightened regulatory risk and more aggressive corporate enforcement ahead. In light of these changes, companies – especially those in the Section’s identified priorities for enforcement – should prepare for increased parallel enforcement and criminal liability by proactively strengthening their compliance programs to identify and address issue

The annual revisions to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act reporting thresholds have arrived. The new thresholds for notification will apply to all transactions that close on or after the effective date of the notice, which is 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

On December 12, 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2025. This report, required by the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, provides Congress GAO’s bid protest statistics covering fiscal year 2025, including the most prevalent reasons GAO sustained protests. The 2025 GAO report reveals that bid protest filings were down 6% as compared to last year (1,688 in FY 2025 as opposed to 1,803 in FY 2024). Aside from an in