Takeshi Iitani has returned to southgate. Takeshi is a founding member of the firm and focuses on domestic and cross-border M&A, joint ventures, strategic alliances and start-up investments, while also handling corporate governance, securities, insolvency, competition, intellectual property, employment, privacy and other general corporate matters. Takeshi also has extensive experience in dispute resolution. His return allows us to handle an even wider range of practice areas.
Yutaro Ito too has joined southgate. Since qualifying as an attorney in 2017, Yutaro has been focusing on domestic and cross-border M&A, start-up investments, corporate law, securities regulations, and other general corporate matters. He began his career at a Japanese firm and spent two years on secondment in the principal investment and private equity fund departments of a major Japanese securities company. His joining the firm further enhances our service offerings to clients.
We started the firm with three attorneys in 2016 and we are now at 10 attorneys. We will continue our efforts to offer high-quality cross-border legal services accessible to a broad spectrum of clients.