Mr. Celniker is a partner in Morrison & Foerster’s Tokyo office. He is the co-chair of the firm’s International Arbitration practice group and of the China Intellectual Property practice group. He has extensive international commercial litigation and arbitration experience, with particular emphasis on intellectual property issues.

Mr. Celniker has represented both international and domestic companies in the litigation and arbitration of intellectual property, construction, and commercial issues in the power, pharmaceutical, internet, computer, consumer products, food and electronics industries before state and federal courts, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, the American Arbitration Association, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London Court of International Arbitration, Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, Japan Commercial Arbitration Association, Iran-U.S. claims Tribunal and others. In addition, Mr. Celniker’s experience includes participation in a variety of international litigation issues, for example, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Act of State, United States Arbitration Act, international arbitration conventions, Hague Convention, international discovery issues, and litigation and arbitration in Norway, France, Mexico and Venezuela, and he has assisted foreign clients in litigation in Japanese Courts.

Mr. Celniker has represented clients from Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Oceania.

Mr. Celniker has been recognized in several recent annual editions of The Asia Pacific Legal 500 as a Leading Individual for Intellectual Property litigation in Japan. He has also been listed as a Highly Recommended lawyer for Dispute Resolution in several recent annual editions of the PLC Cross-border Dispute Resolution Handbook, which also listed Morrison & Foerster as the Leading foreign dispute resolution firm in Japan. Mr. Celniker was featured in the most recent edition of Euromoney’s Legal Media Group Guide to the World’s Leading Experts in Commercial Arbitration .

Mr. Celniker received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law (J.D. 1990), where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and a member of the Columbia-VLA Journal of Law and the Arts, Columbia University’s Intellectual Property law journal, and has a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies. Mr. Celniker was admitted to practice in New York in 1991 and California in 1998. He is amember of the American Bar Association. He is a Gaikokuho Jimu Bengoshi in Japan and a member of Daini Tokyo Bar Association.