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

In the last eight months since I joined this company, my team has supported key projects for the business such as due diligence, transactional and financing arrangement support for a significant M&A deal, and legal advice and establishment of new legal entities in Singapore and Japan in relation to new business initiatives. The legal team also led the negotiations and settlement of a mediation case in The US which helped the company to avoid class action lawsuit potentially amounting to significant damages, and negotiations and conclusion of a significant franchise agreement renewal which enabled the business to continue its business activities without major disruption.

Could you share an example of a time when your team came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

The team renewed its internal website to enhance user experience and friendliness by simplifying the site layout and creating new contents providing information on latest legal trends such as AI, Metaverse, Personal Data Protection.

Several of our members obtained the Certified Information Privacy Professional certification or the new Privacy White Private Sector certification from the Japan DPO Association to enhance their knowledge and expertise on privacy laws in various countries to better support the needs of the business.

How important is choosing to work with external lawyers who align with your company’s values?

Establishing a good understanding with our external counsel regarding the company values, mission and strategy is highly important to us. Each division develops its own “mission pyramid” in line with that of the Group and works in accordance with the set missions and strategies. It is expected that the external counsel we work with understand these and assist in achieving them.

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

Our mission is to “expand business potential with legal and IP solutions”, and our vision is to develop a true partnership between business and legal and IP. As true partners, we aim to share the passion for business, products and services with our business colleagues and combine our legal and IP expertise with in-depth business knowledge of the business teams to create added value that contributes to business goals and strategies together. We discuss and explore the possibility to interpret existing rules and formulation of new rules through lobbying industry associations and government organs to enable business transformation and challenge, by timely capturing changes in the environment and responding with agility and speed. We enable business units and management to make rational risk-taking decisions by identifying, analysing, and scrutinising risks, identifying which risks can be taken and which cannot be taken, visualising potential problems that may occur when taking risks, and providing advice on cautionary points when taking risks and risk mitigation and avoidance measures.