Asialaw Profiles
The Guide to the legal markets of the Asia-Pacific

The leading law firm across the board by all market accounts is Kim & Chang. As Korea’s most well-known and biggest firm, it offers premier legal advice in finance, capital markets and M&A. The banking practice group provides top counsel for acquisition financing, project financing, restructuring, international financing, trade financing, structured financing, derivatives transactions, securitisations, loans, deposits, trusts, and other financing-related matters involving banks and lender participants in Korea. The team maintains a high profile in introducing, structuring, and updating innovative state-of-the-art financial products like equity-linked hybrid instruments.

Of note is the firm’s wealth of non-legal professionals like industry experts and ex-government officials to offer clients a greater depth of advice. Its project finance team works across all industries and has represented sponsors, lenders, contractors and various other market entrants. The structured finance group has handled many market firsts and brought innovative solutions to transaction types such as asset-backed securitisations, asset-backed commercial paper conduits and credit derivatives work.

Kim & Chang’s M&A practice is lauded by peers and clients as a market leader. Its size allows the team to handle the most complex domestic or international, public and private M&A transactions. Its interdisciplinary team works closely with other practice groups such as tax, privatisation, restructuring, labour, and litigation.

The capital markets group is another frontrunner in the market and it offers counsel on domestic and foreign securities issues and listings. It employs at least 50 attorneys and had experience on not only traditional equity and bond offerings, but also on various combined instruments like equity-linked and hybrid securities. Its lawyers are leaders in the industry and have worked with the government to develop a number of Korea’s securities laws including the Securities and Exchange Act and the recent Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act.

A headline-grabbing and closely-watched M&A deal for the firm this year was working for eBay in its acquisition of Korea’s Gmarket. Another top transaction had a team advising the joint arrangers in the combined US$770 million financing for the construction of an integrated steel plant by Hyundai Steel Company.

Kim & Chang has a litigation and arbitration practice that ranks as one of the best in the country. The firm has a long-standing expertise in complex, diverse and large scale disputes and frequently handles high-profile cases. Practitioners in this group bring a wealth of experience and knowledge of procedural laws and precedents and advise clients on a range of litigations including public law and constitutional, antitrust and competition, banking and finance, M&A, labour and employment, shipping, media and white collar crimes, among others. Key partners part of the group are Byung Chol Yoon, Jin Yeong Chung and Eun Yong Park. The latter is a noted arbitrator and a member of the ICC Arbitration Committee for Korea.

A recent noteworthy achievement for the team was in successfully defending nine Korean banks in a complicated export litigation. The lawsuit was heard before a California State Court, involved numerous claims and cross-claims worth other US$100 million and lasted for over six years. Another current prominent representation is for Lone Star Funds in several key litigations before the Korea Courts. One of these cases is criminal related to charges of stock price manipulation in connection with KEB’s merger with KEB Credit Service.

The top-quality intellectual property practice at Kim & Chang handles all aspects of prosecution, litigation, patent, trade mark, design, copyright and trade secret infringement. Key members of the team include patent attorney and chemical practice specialist Young Kim, Sang-Wook Han and US patent expert Jay Kim. One case the team took on this year was representing Carrier Korea as its litigation counsel in two patent infringement actions and six patent invalidation actions against LG Electronics. The firm’s lawyers made strong arguments based on prior art references throughout the case and obtained a rapid decision in favour of Carrier.

Another significant matter saw the firm acting as litigation counsel to Sanofi-Aventis in confirmation-of-scope trials against five domestic pharmaceutical companies before the Patent Court. The Intellectual Property Tribunal ruled in favour of Kim & Chang’s client, agreeing that the domestic companies’ products fell within the scope of the Sanofi-Aventis’ patent.