White & Case has hired a pair of M&A partners in Tokyo from Freshfields, as the US firm moves to capitalise on a record Japanese deals market.
Noah Carr and Gordon Palmquist would "add strength on strength to our team in Tokyo, where we’re building one of the strongest international practices in the market,” said White & Case chair, Heather McDevitt.
They each have more than 15 years of experience in Tokyo and joined Freshfields in late 2023, Carr from Latham & Watkins and Palmquist from Mayer Brown.
New York-qualified Carr specialises in complex public and private acquisitions, carve-outs, private equity and growth capital investments, joint ventures and strategic alliances, serving Japanese corporates and investors as well as international financial sponsors. He joined Latham in 2019 having been a partner at Morrison & Foerster.
Meanwhile Palmquist advises Japanese corporate groups, financial institutions and energy and trading companies on their outbound acquisitions, divestments, carve-outs and complex infrastructure platforms.
Earlier this year they advised NEC Corporation on its $2.9bn acquisition of Nasdaq-listed SaaS solutions provider CSG Systems. They also acted for Sumitomo Chemical on its sale of 22.5% of the shares in Saudi exchange-listed Petro Rabigh to Saudi Aramco in 2024, among other deals.
Their move to White & Case follows Japan recording its largest M&A deal value in more than 20 years in 2025, exceeding $385bn according to Dealogic data, as Japanese corporates acquire foreign assets to outpace their country's shrinking domestic market and deploy massive corporate cash reserves.
Japan has also become a destination for private equity investment as global funds have flocked to the country to capitalise on historically high returns and undervalued assets, driven by Tokyo Stock Exchange governance reforms, a wave of succession issues in family-owned businesses and corporate restructurings.
Earlier this week Kirkland & Ellis announced it would open an office in Tokyo with a trio of M&A and debt finance lawyers hired from Morrison Foerster, White & Case and Ropes & Gray.
Other recent entrants to the Japanese market include US labour and employment firm Fisher Phillips, China’s Yingke Law Firm and UK-headquartered firm Bird & Bird. In March, Mayer Brown boosted its Tokyo corporate and securities offering with a seven-lawyer team from A&O Shearman, just a month after it hired away A&O Shearman’s Tokyo chief, Masahisa Ikeda.
Carr and Palmquist take White & Case's Tokyo office to around 50 lawyers, including 14 partners, making it one of the largest teams among international law firms in Japan. The office has a strong transactions focus and is recognised for its expertise in banking and international trade, particularly its handling of aviation and shipping finance work and projects and energy transactions.
White & Case, which grew revenue to $3.6bn in 2025 fuelled by a "patricularly strong" period for its M&A team, said it had added more than 25 lateral M&A partners over the past year. Among them was Paul Tiger, the former head of US transactions at Freshfields, and Reed Smith's global M&A chair, Jennifer Cheng, who joined in New York earlier this year.
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