Eriko Watanabe is an antitrust partner at Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu. Ms. Watanabe worked at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago (1994-1995) as a visiting attorney, and served as a deputy director of the Fair Trade Commission of Japan (1995-1998). In addition to her work with the firm, Ms. Watanabe has taught, as the Professor at Keio Law School, antitrust and corporate law (2004-2007), and has been a member of various governmental commissions such as the Supervisory Commission for Public-Private and Private-Private Competitive Tenderings appointed by the prime minister of Japan from April 2007 to July 2012. She also assumed the position of a member of the Board of Governers and a member of the Audit & Supervisory Committee of Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), Japan Broadcasting Corporation, with the approval of both Houses of National Diet and appointed by the Prime Minister.

Ms. Watanabe has written on numerous legal topics regarding the Antimonopoly Law of Japan in both English and Japanese, including "Merger Control Worldwide" (the Japan part) and "Anti-Cartel Enforcement Worldwide" (the Japan part) for Cambridge University Press and has authored many publications in Japanese, including several chapters in the book entitled "Regulation on Setting Technology Standards Under the Antimonopoly Law of Japan," "Doing Business in Japan - Competition Law," "Practice regarding the Antimonopoly Law of Japan" (2006) and various papers such as "New Merger Guidelines and Review of Merger Cases by the JFTC" for Fair Trade (2003 and 2004). She has been a panelist in a number of international antitrust/competition law presentations such as at the ABA Cartel Workshop.

Ms. Watanabe earned her LL.B. in 1983 at Tohoku University in Japan and her LL.M. in 1994 at the University of Washington, School of Law in Seattle.