Team size: 30

How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crisis to ensure the organisation’s resilience?

We have established strong relationships with law firms that specialise in dealing with instability and crises.

Have you had any experiences during your career as a lawyer that stand out as particularly unique or interesting?

The significance of our in-house legal department lies not only in having a deep understanding of our company’s business, but also in knowing and experiencing what risks we face in the actual execution of business after contract signing, and how we resolve those risks while moving forward with business operations. This knowledge enables us to review terms and conditions of a contract and to negotiate them efficiently in order to avoid such risks.

To this end, as our company engages in EPC works for industrial plant, where operations take place at construction sites, I was assigned to overseas construction site as a member of the project team for several years, where I gained firsthand experience in implementing the aforementioned risk mitigation strategies.

What is a cause, business or otherwise, that you are passionate about? Why is this?

Building career paths for legal professionals within the company. I would like to develop legal professionals who not only have knowledge and experience in contracts, corporate law, compliance, labour relations and other areas of law, but also experience in other corporate functions and on the front lines of business.

In addition, the establishment of a global legal governance system. The importance of consolidated management has been emphasised for some time, but I would like to establish such a system based on this perspective within the legal departments of the group companies as soon as possible.

What factors influence your team’s decision to use external legal services versus handling matters in-house, and what criteria are used to evaluate their performance?

In the case of overseas projects, it is natural to seek the support of external lawyers when it is necessary to clarify the requirements of applicable local laws. However, in other cases, when a dispute arises, or is likely to arise, with the contracting party, we may seek support not only for evaluating the dispute, but also for developing negotiation strategies. We expect strategies that we would not be able to come up with internally.

Therefore, whether external lawyers provide practical support with a thorough understanding of Japanese companies, as well as our company’s culture and way of thinking, will be a key evaluation criterion.