Japan, Europe and Spain: Legal News in Law and Business

Article diffused by HR - Web: https://bit.ly/2wtse0f

By virtue of the institutional relations that the Fide Foundation, the Japan Research Group of the University of Zaragoza and the Garrigues Foundation maintain, this session has been organised in the context of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between Spain and Japan and with a view to the entry into force of the Economic and Strategic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and Japan.

The session was chaired by Cristina Jiménez Savurido, President of FIDE, Antonio Garrigues, President of the Garrigues Foundation, Josep Piqué, President of the Spain-Japan Council, and Masashi Mizukami, Ambassador of Japan to Spain, who in their opening remarks highlighted the enormous interest in studying the relations of Spain and Europe with Japan from a legal and business point of view.

Josep Piqué, pointed out that the world's geostrategic axis is now in the Pacific and that we must be aware that we are on the edges of the map and cannot afford not to look at the centre.

Antonio Garrigues spoke of his close personal relationship with Japan, not only because of the many times he has visited that country, but also because of the work of dissemination and research into Japanese law carried out by the Garrigues Chair of Global Law at the University of Navarra, which has published the first Japanese-Spanish legal dictionary, as well as the translation of the Japanese Civil Code into Spanish, with comments and notes, both projects in collaboration with the member of the Japan Research Group, Francisco Barberán.

Ambassador Mizukami, pointed out as characteristic of the Japanese idiosyncrasy the search for excellence, giving two highly illustrative examples in the commercial field regarding the marketing and distribution of two products: cars and chocolate.
After that, the presentations of the specialists began, with the aim of opening a debate on each topic:

Ramón Vilarroig, President of the Economic-Administrative Court of Castellón and Professor of Financial and Tax Law at the University Jaume I of Castellón, reported on the existence of an interesting Japanese experience in the field of crowdfunding in the financing of local entities, known as furusato nôzei, which has existed in Japan since 2008 and which is a system that allows for the strengthening of the local economy through a mechanism of donations to local councils.

The furusato nôzei mechanism, or payment of taxes in the hometown, is not strictly speaking a system of tax payments, as its name might suggest, in which more local taxes must be paid. On the contrary, it is a system in which citizens can freely make donations to the municipality of their choice in exchange for receiving certain goods produced in that municipality and obtaining a tax deduction in their income tax.

Perhaps the most appropriate translation, in view of the reality of the model, rather than the literal nature of the concept, would be "incentive donations".

This is a voluntary model that has been used by more than 450,000 Japanese and has brought in more than 400 billion yen in income to Japanese municipalities.
Professor Vilarroig indicated that perhaps it could be studied to apply this Japanese experience in Spain or in other countries around us.

Ana Gascón, a civil servant on leave from the Council of Europe and professor of international public law at the University of Zaragoza, explained the importance of secure data flows between Japan and EU Member States.

Firstly, because Japanese companies must comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation when they offer goods or services to residents of the European Union, at the risk of incurring heavy penalties if they do not. But also because, in order to achieve the full potential of the economic partnership agreement between Japan and the European Union, it is important that personal data can be transferred between them, yet both Japan and the European Union only allow such international transfers if they are made to another country with the necessary legal safeguards.

To this end, there are different mechanisms that companies can use, but what most facilitates such flow is an adequacy finding, recognising that in the country of destination the protection is essentially equivalent and thus liberalising data flows generally.