Law, Policy and Practice in the Energy Industry

Hiroyasu Konno specializes in the energy and natural resources sector, mainly in the upstream and middle-stream sectors, such as projects and transactions regarding LNG, biomass fuels, coal, rare metals, copper ore, petroleum, and other minerals in the world, as well as the down-stream sectors such as transactions regarding electricity and gas in Japan. He has a breadth of knowledge about industrial practices and policy trends, through his experience working as a secondee, or temporary worker, at Nippon Oil (currently ENEOS), JOGMEC (Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (currently Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security))，and JERA, in addition to an energy and natural resources team in a foreign law firm, as well as experience from being a committee member of relevant governmental panels. He always endeavors to provide clients with legal services with additional value, including managerial perspectives. He handles all kinds of legal issues related to the energy and natural resources sector, by closely working together with N&A’s experts in each sector. He also actively works on legal issues with regard to “carbon”, such as CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage), transactions of carbon credits, and others.

Kojiro Fujii specializes in the fields of competition law and international trade law. He also covers emerging areas of digital policy/regulations and public policy/regulations, such as those related to sustainability. His expertise in these areas is frequently recognized by international and domestic legal publications. Kojiro also is regularly ranked by Chambers (Band 1 International Trade, Japan and Band 2 TMT, Japan) and Who’s Who Legal (Competition). He achieved the highest ranking in the “International Trade and Economic Security” category of Nikkei’s “Most successful lawyers” (as voted by Japanese companies and peer lawyers) in 2022; he was recognized by Asian Legal Business as one of the Top 15 Technology, Media and Telecommunications Lawyers in Asia in 2023; and he was shortlisted for the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards Asia-Pacific as the Most Innovative Practitioner for his work covering those areas in 2024.

In addition to his career at N&A, he served as the deputy director of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, where he handled several important WTO disputes on behalf of the Japanese government. He also worked at a highly reputable international law firm in Washington DC, where he focused on antitrust matters.

Jun is a partner in our corporate crisis management practice, who handles domestic and overseas corporate crisis management matters, including conducting internal investigations, responding to relevant authorities and stock exchanges, the media, handling labor disputes, representing companies in relevant legal proceedings in relation to various corporate misconduct matters, such as quality falsification issues by manufacturing companies, financial fraud issues, etc. Jun has experience as a member of an investigation committee on corporate misconduct. Jun was previously seconded to a global trading company, and he has extensive experience in handling cross-border corporate crisis management matters and establishing global compliance programs. Jun is also a partner in our energy and natural resources practice, where he mainly advises utility companies, including providing advice on domestic and overseas investments, contracts, regulations, and disputes in relation to energy and natural resources.