Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, typically taking the form of sales, donations, investments, real estate investments, or lending. In addition new forms of crowdfunding are emerging in areas including regional revitalization projects, impact investment projects, renewable energy-related projects and Web3 community-based crowdfunding.

Atsumi & Sakai advises crowdfunding service providers on legal issues including:

• Financial services regulations
• Banking regulation
• Data protection
• Online identity verification (eKYC)
• Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT)
• Digital securities (STOs) and tokenized assets
• Interest rates
• Money lending
• Terms of business
• Investor protection

We also provide legal support necessary for compliance with applicable regulations, including advice on terms of business and communications with the Financial Services Agency. Where clients seek to pursue listings, we support discussions with stock exchanges in Japan and lead underwriters regarding applicable regulatory matters .

 

When advising foreign clients, our firm can field a team of expert Japanese lawyers and foreign lawyers who have relevant experience and bi-cultural sensitivity. Our team can do business and draft documents in Japanese, English, German, Mandarin, Hindi, Korean, and Marathi, and provides services around the clock through our global affiliated offices.

 

 

Related Publications

• Libra’s Identity: Will GAFA Dominate the Currency?, Nikkei Publishing Inc. (2019)
• "A fresh dose of regulation and promotion," Asia Pacific Fintech Special Focus 2019, IFLR April/May 2019, IFLR (2019)
• "Fintech: Business Strategies and the Law," Kinzai Institute for Financial Affairs, Inc. (2017)

 

Related Web Articles

• "Establishing New Services and Promoting Businesses after the Pandemic," Chambers FinTech 2020 (December, 2020) 
• "Data Driven Innovation and Regulatory Consolidation," Chambers FinTech 2020 (January, 2020) 
• "Japan: wholesale regulatory rethink," IFLR Fintech Leaders 2019 (July 2019)
• "Moving Forward to a Cashless Society", Chambers FinTech 2019 (January, 2019) 

 

Related Seminars

• Panelist at a panel session entitled "International financial hub, regulation and legislation," at the"World Fintech Festival Japan," on December 8, 2020, organized by So Inc., in collaboration with the Fintech Association of Japan, and supported by the OECD Tokyo Centre, the Organization of Global Financial City Tokyo, and FINOLAB Inc.
• "Fintech trends in Japan and the UK," hosted by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and the British Japanese Law Association, September 26, 2018​​​​​​

 

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