Event Report

The Legal 500’s GC Summit Japan 2023 lived up to the promise of its agenda and then some, welcoming 200 legal professionals to the Grand Ballroom of the Peninsula Hotel next to Tokyo’s Imperial Palace to discuss the burning issues that affect the profession today. After returning to Tokyo to much fanfare at the end of last year for our 2022 GC Summit Japan, we were proud to raise the bar and deliver a selection of sessions that raised the bar, and put GCs in Japan at the centre of the conversations in the way that only a GC Summit can. 

Dan Matsuda of EY and The Legal 500’s Joe Boswell provided opening remarks, before the first panel session of the day took off, hosted by competition law experts Ikeda & Someya. This insightful panel discussion was tailored for in-house legal professionals who are seeking guidance in the realm of competition law, something that a high proportion of top GCs in Japan list as a constant headache.  

We then moved on to three quickfire presentations. Kengo Nishigaki, founder of GI&T Law Office and an expert speaker, kicked this portion off by talking about internal investigations before Toshio Nakajima of Miura & Partners briefed the audience on the current state of play regarding cyber security. Finally, the magnetic personality of Cheng Kwee Chua took to the stage to discuss data management software and how this can assist in-house legal teams.

After coffee, Baker & McKenzie’s session on international disputes was the setting for a truly engaging discussion between the firm’s dispute resolution group head for Tokyo, Yoshiaki Muto, general counsel John PH Vigman and Anthony Luna and disputes partner Takeshi Yoshida. In particular, Vigman and Luna’s different techniques for dealing with litigation concerns led to a robust discussion and frank exchange of views that got a great reaction from the audience.  

We were fortunate to be able to introduce another hugely experienced panel in the following session. Cognizant of the fact that the issue at hand, export controls and economic sanctions, was one that was particularly timely, Nishimura & Asahi provided four experts with Akin providing a fifth. Kazuho Nakajima, Noriko Yodogawa, Yuki Sakurada, Kojiro Fujii and Atsushi Oshima provided a detailed introduction and overview of the prevailing environment before moving on to advise the GCs in the room as to how they can best navigate this complex world.

After lunch, the next set of panellists took to the stage to address a packed ballroom. The lack of empty seats was testament to the fact that the subject of this panel – AI – is definitively the hot topic in the legal world currently. Two top GCs, Kyoko Mizuguchi of Fujitsu and Yuichiro Watanabe of Airbnb, were joined by three AI experts from LegalOn Technologies (JP Biard, Gabor Melli and Daniel Lewis) to talk through what generative AI can do to assist with the chronically high workloads of a modern legal team. 

Yoko Maeda and Bruno Savoie of City-Yuwa Partners helmed the subsequent session which took the conversation to a wholly new area, that of international arbitration. Adding to their vast experience was Shinji Ogawa of the Japan Commercial Arbitration Organisation and GC Masako Takahata of Exponential Design and a keen advocate of arbitration for in-house lawyers in Japan.  

Following our final coffee break, Atsumi & Sakai provided another extremely timely discussion on a topic that many in the room were keen to learn more about – human rights due diligence in the supply chain. Alongside senior partner Takafumi Ochiai and partner Daniel Jarrett, the panel included three highly senior and well respected GCs: Yoshinori Mochida of Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, Kazunari Fukuda of LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton Japan and Takayuki Kitajima of Japan Holdings. After talking through regulations that have been put into effect elsewhere – notably Germany – the panel gave advice on how to get ahead of regulations which may be coming into effect in Japan in the future. A hugely practical and informative discussion. 

Our final presentation slot came next, with Epiq providing two hugely charismatic speakers to talk through the benefits and capabilities of Technology Enabled Fraud Investigations. William Hutcheson and Daisuke Nakajima spoke at great length and in impressive detail for a relatively short session. Their efforts were rewarded later at the networking drinks when many attendees looked to learn more over a glass of champagne.  

We rounded off the agenda with a session in partnership with Clifford Chance’s on M&A. Deal maestro Natsuko Sugihara, a partner in Clifford Chance’s Tokyo Office was joined on stage by Marsh’s irrepressible Brent Bell and highly experienced in-house lawyer and M&A specialist James Nepaulsingh of Mitsui & Co. Joe Boswell of The Legal 500 took over moderation duties for this wide-ranging session which also featured a healthy audience interaction and, in particular, looked to interrogate the possibilities that Warranty and Indemnity insurance currently gives to companies in Japan. 

Thank you so much to our distinguished event partners for this event, who helped us to make this agenda so exceptional. We were delighted to have some of the biggest hitters in the Tokyo legal scene partner with us on this event, and look forward to working with even more of the legal fraternity in Japan in 2024 and beyond.  

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