Kenji Hosokawa

Kenji Hosokawa is a partner in the Corporate Department of Morrison & Foerster’s Tokyo Office. He has represented Japanese, U.S. and other clients in a range of transactions, including U.S. public offerings and stock exchange listings, American Depositary Share programs, private placements, block trades, sovereign financings, privatizations and public and private M&A transactions.

In recent years, he has been involved in a large number of global offerings conducted by Japanese issuers, as the issuer’s counsel or underwriters’ counsel. In addition, he has advised a large number of J-REITs, their asset managers and investment banks on the EU Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, or AIFMD, and Swiss Federal Act on Collective Investment Schemes, CISA, as applied to J-REITs. Mr. Hosokawa also advises on compliance with U.S. disclosure, reporting and corporate governance requirements, as well as with the U.S. Volcker Rule and economic sanctions programs. Most recently, he has been involved in initial coin offerings (ICOs) and registration of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Mr. Hosokawa is ranked Band 2 in the Japan: Capital Markets: International: US Law category of Chambers Global (2018) and Chambers Asia Pacific (2019). He is also ranked as a Leading Individual in the 2019 edition of The Legal 500 Asia Pacific for Japan: Capital Markets.

Mr. Hosokawa earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2001, where he was a Kent Scholar and Senior Editor of The Columbia Law Review. In 1998, he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Dartmouth College. Mr. Hosokawa is currently a part-time lecturer at Sophia University Law School, where he teaches international finance. Mr. Hosokawa is also currently the President of the Dartmouth Club of Japan and the first international member of the Dartmouth Communities Executive Council. Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, Mr. Hosokawa founded and ran an online venture, based in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

In his pro bono practice, Mr. Hosokawa has provided advice to a global healthcare fund, a global environmental conservation group, a human rights organization, a project dedicated to eradicating sex trafficking, a company that provides AI-based anti-litter services, Japan’s largest LGBTA business professional network, and a Karuizawa-based international school that has been certified as a UWC school. He is also a member of a working group developing a platform for social impact financing in Japan. Mr. Hosokawa currently serves as a partner of Social Venture Partners Tokyo, a network that aims to accelerate social entrepreneurship in Japan.

Mr. Hosokawa has native proficiency in both English and Japanese. He is admitted to practice law in New York and is qualified as a Gaikokuho-Jimu-Bengoshi in Japan.