Team size: Approximately 80 members

What are the most significant cases or transactions that you have been involved in over the past year?
Since we are the legal team of a general trading house with seven sections, we handle all important matters related to the business conducted globally by seven business divisions. We receive legal consultation at all phases of a project from the preliminary phase of an acquisition to the post PMI phase of the acquisition. Therefore, our legal staff handle cases not only at the time of project structuring but also on an ongoing basis. We have dealt with numerous matters within the past year, including a range of M&A, tender deals and dispute resolution in various industries and regions. In addition, three sections of our department deal with general compliance matters and import and export compliance matters. We also cover all company-wide compliance matters other than regular business transactions.

What innovations have you made to the way your legal team works in the past year?

I have newly established the legal department in Vietnam starting from this April 2024. This is the first case in our company where an administrative department establishes an organisation which oversees all the project group companies within Vietnam consistently. Project companies in our group are supervised by each business division independently, and due to the increasing number of investments taking place in Vietnam, it has become quite challenging to have collaboration among these project companies as to the legal matters and other administrative matters.

Sojitz Corporation is focusing on business in Vietnam having more than 20 active companies in Vietnam. Vietnam is one of the most active regions for our group and this landscape will continue in our mid-term plan 2026. In the meantime, we have realised, through active investments, many challenges in Vietnam (such as anti-bribery, corruption issues and complicated governmental procedures), and we have become aware of the necessity of a proper consistent support throughout the region from legal and compliance perspective.

Under such a situation, being physically close to each project company is very important to truly understand their business team and legal members who are supporting them and their needs within the organisation. This is the main reason that we decided to physically establish a legal department in Vietnam (not remotely supporting from Tokyo HQ). Although it has just kicked off in this April, with the above in mind, I am planning to establish a platform and an environment where all the legal members of the project companies can get together as a group to collaborate each other whenever appropriate and work together toward a same goal.

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives you would like to highlight?

I strongly believe that highly motivated human resources are the key to a successful and well-managed organisation, and I place motivation as one of the highest priorities as general manager of Sojitz’s legal department. As part of this, we have embarked on an organisational improvement project aimed at enhancing our legal support to the business teams and at the same time boosting productivity through digital transformation (DX). This comprises the following two key targets: (i)strengthening engagement 1— we have initiated a project to deepen our understanding of the business divisions’ strategy and objectives, which also have the effect of inspiring a sense of contribution and eagerness among our members. This involves all business divisions sharing their mid-term plans with us and then discussing effective legal support for such plans. Members also have opportunities to discuss how to align the vision and values of the legal department with the goals of the department, which in turn leads us to reflect on and refine our day-to-day operations; (ii) productivity improvement through digital transformation — we have introduced a ‘DX Month,’ a period where every member of the legal department interacts with ‘Sojitz AI Chat’, the generative AI tool provided by the company. The purpose of this DX Month is for our team to explore and implement ways in which AI can be used at work we do within the department, thereby enhancing productivity. The ‘DX Month’ kicks off with a workshop led by external AI experts designed to increase the use of Sojitz AI Chat and promote its practical application.
We have also taken several DX initiatives for strengthening the legal department’s functions. These include the introduction of legal tech and IT systems to increase productivity, with a focus on knowledge management, improving internal workflows, and using AI in contract review. We are also actively developing in-house applications using Microsoft Power Platform’s low-code/no-code tools and leveraging the company-wide Citizen Developer programme to streamline routine tasks.