What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

Our vision is to build out one of the largest clean energy portfolios in the region. Therefore, our APAC legal team has been negotiating transactions for developing renewable energy projects —solar PV, wind and battery storage — in various jurisdictions across the APAC region, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Such transactions have involved different corporate, project development, financing considerations, and commercial contracts.

Our legal team also played critical roles in negotiating our strategic joint venture in Korea, known as ‘Aquila Development Partners’, and a partnership in New Zealand to invest in a portfolio of utility-scale solar PV projects across New Zealand.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values? Are you likely to reconsider what firms you work with based on this?

Our company’s values are focused on high performance, cooperation, communication, diversity and commitment. When we engage with external counsel, we treat them as an extension of our in-house team, so they must demonstrate the same values as we operate.

The renewable energy transactions we are involved with are complex and demanding, requiring specialist expertise to navigate evolving regulatory frameworks and challenging commercial negotiations. But technical expertise is only one part of the equation when we select our external counsel. We also want well-rounded, personable, approachable lawyers whom we will enjoy working with. We are passionate about the renewable energy projects we are developing and want to work with external counsel teams that are also passionate about the energy transition. It matters to us how our external law firms treat their lawyers and that they respect every team member’s input, particularly junior team members who go the extra mile to ensure deadlines are achieved. It has been very encouraging to see our law firms take a more proactive approach to diversity in recent years, including promoting more women in influential positions.

We take the time to acknowledge and appreciate the smallest things and treat our external counsel how we want to be treated. We spend a lot of time working together, so having external counsel that mirror our values and we enjoy working with is very important to us.

How do you suggest in-house lawyers build strong relationships with business partners?

In-house lawyers must take the time to understand their company’s business. We do not need to have technical expertise. Still, when we have a closer grasp of our business drivers and the commercial pressures that our business colleagues have within their roles, we can better tailor our advice and provide more meaningful counsel to guide them.

Within my in-house role, I have earned the respect of my business colleagues by listening, understanding and providing my counsel in a down-to-earth and relatable manner. In my experience, you gain commercial trust and respect not by being ‘the smartest guy in the room’ but by listening with curiosity to understand and then working with your business teams to implement a practical solution to the issue. This must also be done in a manner that considers cross-cultural nuances while maintaining professional standards and integrity.