Satoshi Shono

Satoshi Shono is our exclusively recommended Business Law expert in Japan on the Advisory Excellence website. If you need assistance in this area, please contact Satoshi directly using the contact details listed above.

Satoshi Shono is an experienced attorney, and his practice includes a wide variety of areas relating to business laws. As a native English speaker, he advises clients on both domestic and cross-border matters.

Satoshi has extensive experience on M&As, capital and business alliances and corporate-related issues, for both domestic and cross-border matters, having been involved in a vast variety of cases in the past years. The clients he has advised cover a wide range of variety, including manufacturing, sales and dealers, franchise, food and grocery, e-commerce and digital assets, system development, medical, apparels and brands. Furthermore, Satoshi is experienced on litigation, especially on company-related cases held at the Commercial Division in the Japanese Court, which gives him a unique status on being able to provide advice from this perspective. He has represented clients on a large number of cases, which include disputes on shareholdings, pricing of shares, duties of directors and resolution of shareholder meetings. In addition, Satoshi has experience on ligation of other areas, including transaction-related disputes, disputes related to IT, product liability law, and franchises.

Satoshi is also an expert on IP/Entertainment Law and IT/Information Law.  As an experienced IP and Entertainment lawyer, he has been advising numerous clients including on matters related to trademarks, designs patents and copyrights. He also provides advice on the entertainment business, such as music, films, publishing, computer games, mobile apps, apparels and designs.

His expertise in the IT and Information field includes e-commerce businesses, data protection and privacy law and computer systems, which he has dealt with a large number of matters, and has also provided advice to government agencies. Furthermore, he has been working on forming the rules of this area as being a member of the drafting committee on certain guidelines and industrial standards, including the Interpretative Guidelines on Electronic Commerce and Information Property Trading, which is annually revised by the Ministry of Economic, Trade and Industry.

Prior to joining Matsuda & Partners, Satoshi has worked at the Ministry of Economic, Trade and Industry (“METI”). His contribution at METI includes, matters, policy making and legislation relating to IT and Information, privacy, IP and entertainment. He also took a major role in the negotiation on certain chapters of numerous EPA/FTAs, such as the TPP and JP-EU EPA.

Practice Areas

• Mergers & Acquisitions, Capital and business alliances, Company reorganizations, Venture Capitals
• Transaction and Commercial Law, General Corporate (Including cross-border transactions)
• Litigation (Company related litigation / Transaction related litigation)
• Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law
• IT, Tech, Data and Information Law

Bar Admissions

• Attorney at Law (Daini Tokyo Bar Association)

Professional Experience

• Torikai Law Office (2010-2012)
• Ministry of Economic Trade and Industry, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau (2012-2014)
• Torikai Law Office (2014-2015)Wadakura Gate Law Office (2016-2019)Matsuda & Partners (2019-present)
• Member of the drafting committee on the Interpretative Guidelines on Electronic Commerce and Information Property Trading (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) (2014 – present)
• Expert on supporting producers on the content business (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) (2018-2019)
• Drafting committee and working group for the draft revision of JISQ 15001 : 2023 (2021-2023)
• Drafting committee of the standardization of JIS X 9252 (ISO/IEC 29184 : 2020) (2021-2023)
• Drafting committee of the standardization of JIS Q 27701 : 2024 (ISO/IEC 27701 : 2019) (2022-2024)

Education

• University of Tokyo, School of Law
• University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law

Memberships

• Senior Reseracher, Japan Institute of Law and Information Systems (JILIS)
• Financial Instruments and Exchange Law Study Group (Daini Tokyo Bar Association)
• Intellectual Property Law Study Group (Daini Tokyo Bar Association)
• Japan Competition Law Forum
• Japan Institute of Business Law
• Entertainment Lawyers Network
• Intellectual Property Lawyers Network Japan
• Administrative Procedure Law Academic Society
• International Network of Privacy Law Professionals (INPLP)
• International Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA)
• Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA)
• Global Referral Network
• Jus Connect
• Advisory Excellence