What a Bar Association Inquiry Can Obtain｜Article 23-2 of the Attorney Act of Japan

The debtor has stopped replying; the content-certified mail comes back undelivered; you are told the company has moved but not where; you know it is still trading but not which bank it uses. In debt collection, missing information is often a harder obstacle than any point of law. Japan has an investigative tool that has no close equivalent elsewhere: the bar association inquiry under article 23-2 of the Attorney Act of Japan. What follows is an explanation under Japanese law.

Contents

What a bar association inquiry is
How the procedure works
What can be obtained
The limits of the mechanism
Its place in asset investigation for enforcement
In closing
How to contact us

What a bar association inquiry is

Where it is necessary for a case a lawyer has been instructed on, the lawyer may, through the bar association to which he or she belongs, ask a public office or a public or private organisation to report on matters required for that case. That is the bar association inquiry, and its basis is article 23-2 of the Attorney Act of Japan. The inquiry issues in the name of the bar association, not of the individual lawyer, and a lawyer may apply only to his or her own association. The mechanism exists in Japan alone; it has no counterpart in most other jurisdictions.

One condition should be noted at the outset. The tool presupposes an actual case on which the lawyer has been instructed. It is not available before instructions are given, nor to investigate a person where no case exists.

How the procedure works

The lawyer files an application with his or her bar association, setting out the case in outline, the matters to be asked about, and why the inquiry is necessary.
The association examines whether the inquiry is necessary and proportionate. If the matters are drawn too widely, or the risk to the interests of others is too great, it may decline to issue the inquiry or require it to be narrowed.
If the application is approved, the inquiry is dispatched to the addressee in the association’s name.
The addressee replies to the association, which passes the reply to the applying lawyer.

In practice several weeks to several months pass between application and reply, and a modest fee is payable. In urgent matters the timing should be planned from the moment instructions are taken.

What can be obtained

Corporate registration matters — the representative, the head office, the company’s history (though a certificate of registered matters may be obtained by anyone, so an inquiry is usually unnecessary for this alone).
Real property — who owns it and what security is registered over it.
The other party’s address and place of residence — through the municipality, from the resident record and the attached record of the family register.
The subscriber to a telephone number — through the telecommunications carrier, the person in whose name a given number is held.
Facts about a particular transaction — whether a contract was made, whether goods were delivered, whether payment was made, asked of the counterparty to that transaction.
Employment — whether the person is employed and for what period (the amount of salary is not always disclosed).

The limits of the mechanism

First, whether the addressee is under a duty to reply remains debated in Japan, both in the literature and in practice. Banks, telecommunications carriers and medical institutions in particular often decline to answer, or answer only in part, citing the protection of customer information. The inquiry should therefore not be treated as a means that will certainly produce the information sought.

Second, the mechanism has to be reconciled with the protection of personal information and with professional duties of confidentiality. An inquiry drawn too widely, or supported by too thin a justification, will be stopped at the association’s examination stage.

Third, it is not an instrument of criminal investigation. It exists so that civil matters may be handled properly; it may not be used as a substitute for the work of the police, nor to trace a person’s movements for purposes unconnected with the case.

Its place in asset investigation for enforcement

Once an enforceable title has been obtained and the debtor’s assets are still unknown, Japanese law provides two further routes: the property disclosure procedure and the procedure for obtaining information from third parties. Both presuppose an enforceable title, both involve the court, and both reach banks, the registry and municipalities with real force.

The bar association inquiry, by contrast, is available before any action is filed. It is more flexible but carries no compulsion. In practice the two are used in sequence rather than as alternatives: the inquiry establishes the outline — where the debtor now is, which banks it uses, whether it is still trading — and, once an enforceable title exists, the procedure for obtaining information from third parties identifies the deposits, which are then attached.

In closing

Investigation is usually won or lost in the first weeks of instruction. The debtor’s position deteriorates and prescription runs. Instructions can be given from outside Japan by email and video conference, after which Japanese counsel can set the inquiry in motion and carry the matter through provisional attachment to enforcement. We are equally glad to work through the creditor’s own counsel.

How to contact us

Telephone 03-6435-8418 within Japan, or +81-3-6435-8418 from overseas. Lines are open from 08:00 to 24:00 Japan time, including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. Enquiries are also received at any hour through the form on this site.

M&A Partners Law Office LPC　Katsuhiro Tsuchiya, Representative Attorney-at-Law (Tokyo Bar Association, Registration No. 26775)　17F Mori Trust Shiroyama Trust Tower, 4-3-1 Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan

This article is a general explanation based on the laws and practice of Japan as at August 2026 (Reiwa 8). The outcome of any particular matter depends on its own facts, and no specific result is guaranteed.

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