NINoritake Ito
日本語/EN

Startup Legal / Tokyo, Japan

Move at the speed
your business needs.

Four years inside Rakuten's legal department, on the side that ships products. I advise founders building and launching in Japan.

Why

What is different about working with me

I start from how to ship it, not why you cannot

I spent four years as in-house counsel next to the business teams, taking new services to launch. I do not stop at flagging risk. We work out the conditions under which you can go live.

The map of Japanese internet regulation is already in my head

Consumer protection rules including the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, competition law, the Payment Services Act, the Travel Agency Act, disclosure of sender information. I do not have to start from zero in each area.

Support continues after launch

Since qualifying I have handled corporate and M&A, international matters, litigation and disputes, competition law, crisis management and tax audits. For a business, launch is where the real work begins.

Profile

Background

I graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law in 2017 and joined the legal department of Rakuten, Inc. as a new graduate. For four years I worked exclusively on internet services, across competition law, consumer protection statutes, data protection, disclosure of sender information, the Travel Agency Act and payments regulation, and I sat alongside the business through the launch of several services. I then left to qualify as a lawyer, went through Kyoto University School of Law and the Legal Training and Research Institute, and now practise corporate law.

2026.03–
Yoshikawa Law Firm AssociateCorporate and M&A, international matters, litigation and disputes, competition law, consumer protection, startup advisory
2025.04–2026.03
T&K Law Office Associate
2025
Admitted to the bar in JapanCompleted the Legal Training and Research Institute programme
2024
Kyoto University School of Law (professional degree course)
2017.04–2021.03
Rakuten, Inc. Legal DepartmentLegal support for the launch and operation of internet services
2017
University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law (LL.B.)

Working languages: Japanese and English.

Practice

Practice areas

  • Startup advisory
  • Market entry into Japan
  • Terms of service and product launch
  • Data protection
  • Advertising and premiums regulation
  • Corporate
  • M&A and financing
  • Competition law
  • Cross-border contracts
  • Litigation and disputes
  • Employment
  • Crisis management

If a matter falls outside these areas, I will say so and refer you to a lawyer better placed to handle it (see engagement policy).

Resource

Japanese regulatory guideline index

Japanese regulators publish much of what actually governs day-to-day compliance as guidelines and administrative notices rather than as statutes, and the issuing bodies are spread across a dozen ministries and commissions. I maintain an index of 343 such documents, filterable by industry and by function, so that you can see at a glance which rules attach to your business.

About the index →

Getting in touch

For matters I take on personally, please use the contact form. Telling me the outline of the matter, the timeline and who the parties are lets me tell you quickly whether I can act.

Go to the contact form

Please do not send documents until a conflict check is complete.