Nominations are now open for the 9th annual ALB Japan Law Awards. With an improved submission procedure, enhanced methodology and increased transparency, this year’s awards will reflect the overall progress of ALB and its business. The eventual winners, will be announced at our grand gala event on June 5, 2013.

To generate more reliable, trustworthy and valuable results, we have made a series of revisions to our process. This year, you will find in our awards:

Revamped parameters:

An eligible nominee must be, or officially affiliated to, a law firm, an in-house department, a bank or an accountancy firm based in or having physical office in Japan, except for the Offshore Law Firm category. All deals must have a significant Japan element. Additionally, the work must be completed, and the services provided must be within the period of Jan. 1, 2012 through Dec. 31,  2012.

Integrated judging panel:

A 20-strong judging panel, consisting of in-house counsels and private practice lawyers will make the decisions together, unless coming across a specific deal or category that any of them has previously involved in. In that case, this person is disqualified from voting for this related award category.

New award categories:

A couple of new categories have been introduced this year, including Corporate Citizen/CSR Law Firm of the Year , and Tax Law Firm of the Year to recognise the achievements of a firm that performed outstandingly in the tax law practice.

Amended criteria: Some criteria have been adjusted in consistent with the business reality. For instance, the deals must reach a minimum financial size to qualify, e.g. the Debt Market Deal of the Year must be no smaller than $1billion, Equity Market Deal of the Year $700 million, Energy & Resources Deal of the Year $1billion, M&A Deal of the Year $800 million, Real Estate Deal of the Year $500million, Structured Finance & Securitisation Deal of the Year $400 million and TMT Deal of the Year $800 million. These figures were determined by assessing previous deal values to set a threshold which would ensure that only the most significant and complex transactions are recognised.

For a full list of criteria and categories, please click here.

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