Kenta Mochizuki is a Public Policy Councillor / Attorney at Law (New York) for Mercari, Inc. As an international lawyer, he specializes a wide range of international legal and public policy issues including, but not limited to Internet governance, data protection, fintech/regtech, and international trade and taxation. He has been participating in many relevant meetings with the government of Japan as well as other companies or as a member of industry groups in Japan, and also attending workshops and seminars hosted by Embassy of the United States in Japan and Delegation of the European Union to Japan.
Kenta has a strong background in the fields of international law and diplomacy. He started his professional career as an administrative attaché for Embassy of Japan in Poland. After spending about 2 years in Warsaw (2010-2012), he continued his diplomatic career as an advisor for WTO Dispute Settlement at Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva (2012-2014). As an international trade law expert, he got actively involved in 6 trade disputes to which Japan is a party as well as more than 20 third-party trade disputes during his term in Geneva. In addition, he participated in various meetings of DSU review negotiations with proponents and produced a lot of reports for the government in order to analyze unsolved items toward convergence.
After spending more than 4 years in the diplomatic field, Kenta joined Yahoo Japan Corporation and got actively involved in international public policy. Taking the recent involvement for example, he attended the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS in New York, in December 2015. After that, he served not only as a moderator but as a panelist for several sessions at WSIS Forum 2016, APrIGF Taipei 2016, IGF Mexico 2016, and IGF Geneva 2017 in which he took the lead of a main session titled “Digital Transformation: How Do We Shape Its Socio-Economic and Labor Impacts for Good?” as a Japanese MAG member. He was a member of the Multistakeholder Steering Group of the APrIGF as well as a member of the Japanese delegation to the 2016-2018 UNCSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation. In addition to the international activities, he devoted himself to contributing to various domestic discussions on Internet-related public policy issues. he participated in IGF-Japan, Internet Governance Conference of Japan, and other relevant meetings. In November 2016, he made a presentation titled “Free Flow of Information and Data Privacy” by taking up the electronic commerce chapter of the TPP, APEC’s Cross Border Privacy Rules System (CBPR), and EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) at Internet Week 2016 held in Japan. Further, on behalf of Yahoo Japan Corporation, he was one of the few members of Japan Business Federation (“Keidanren”) to closely cooperate and collaborate with Personal Information Protection Commission of Japan (PPC) in relation to the establishment of a framework for the smooth and mutual transfer of personal data between Japan and the European Union.
Kenta has remained in the same field, i.e., international and domestic public policy, while greatly assisting Mercari, Inc. in complying with international and domestic rules and regulations. In October 2018, he served as a speaker for a side event titled “Privacy Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific: Moving Toward Interoperability” in the 40th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners in Brussels. Besides, as an inhouse counsel, he has drafted, reviewed, and analyzed a wide variety of contracts in a team effort with sales executives and upper management, and also collaborated with an internal audit team to establish necessary and robust internal arrangements and procedures to protect and utilize personal data and other information.
Kenta earned his LL.B. degree from Kansai University. He also earned his LL.M. in International Law degree from Kobe University Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law degree from George Washington University Law School. He has been admitted to practice law in the courts of New York since September 2015.