Masako Banno

Masako is an attorney at law licensed in Japan and New York, and a partner at Okuno & Partners, a full-service independent business law firm in Tokyo. She focuses on cross-border finance/commercial transactions and investment fund formation, as well as international corporate transactions such as M&A and joint ventures for global companies setting up their business in Japan. She teaches Japanese securities law, investment fund regulations and corporate law to foreign law students as a lecturer at Chuo University and Graduate School Faculty of Law in Tokyo. Masako has worked as a senior counsel to the Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA) for three years, where she obtained the first-hand experience in enforcement of FIEA (Financial Instruments Exchange Act). She regularly advises the clients about registration for share offering, statutory/timely disclosure, TOB, investment fund transactions, and regulatory issues of FIEA such as licensing, compliance, or extraterritorial application of FIEA. She is a member of the Japanese Law Translation Council at the Ministry of Justice of Japan, as well as an officer of Diversity & Inclusion Council of the International Bar Association (IBA), and the International Affairs Office of Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA).