Seoul-based Jipyong has elected new leaders to run the 24-year-old firm, including an attorney who represented South Korea’s fair-trade watchdog in winning a dismissal of US semiconductor and telecoms equipment company Qualcomm’s objection to a record-high fine.
Attorneys Gee Hong Kim and Haeng Gyu Lee are set to take the helm from the start of next year, succeeding managing partners and founding members Young Tae Yang and Sung Taek Lim.
Kim, who currently heads the firm’s antitrust and competition group, told Asia Business Law Journal that, together with existing capital markets and private equity group head Lee, they would focus on developing the technology and global practice in their new capacity.
“We will be implementing a ‘per capita technology policy’ with each attorney specialising at least in one latest piece of technology per industry, and we are also contemplating a strategic partnership with a top patent firm,” said Kim.
Qualified in South Korea and New York, Kim started his legal career as a judge advocate officer at the Korean Air Force in 1998 and has been practising at Jipyong since 2001, one year after the establishment of the firm. The antitrust and competition group head represented the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) in winning a court dismissal of Qualcomm’s objection to a penalty surcharge of KRW260 billion (USD208 million) imposed in 2009 for abuse of market dominance. At the time the penalty was imposed, it was the largest fine the KFTC had ever levied on a single company, Reuters .
Like Kim, Lee – who specialises in multiple areas including capital markets, private equity funds, M&A and project financing – is also qualified in South Korea and New York. Having joined Jipyong in 2002, the current capital markets and PE group head has advised both Korean and foreign companies on cross-border transactions, including assisting KOLAO Holdings (now LVMC Holdings), one of Laos’ largest private companies, in listing on the Korea Exchange.
On the global practice front, Jipyong, which currently runs eight overseas offices, has recently opened a Budapest branch through a strategic alliance with Hungarian firm Oppenheim, providing services to Korean companies operating in the Central and Eastern European market to meet increased client demands for regulatory services and advice on reconstruction projects in the region.
But Kim said that, under his and Lee’s leadership, it would be equally important for the firm to further expand its global practice by focusing on serving foreign clients’ operations in Korea or their inroads into the domestic market. To achieve that, they plan to work on strengthening the firm’s expertise in labour, workplace accidents, fair trade, capital markets, ESG as well as privacy laws and regulations.
The new leadership’s focus on areas such as labour is reflected in the firm’s recent hire of a team of lawyers specialising in Korean labour laws from Dentons Lee. Among those who joined was partner Yong Moon Kim, who previously headed Dentons Lee’s labour and employment practice group, and practised as a labour and employment partner at Lee & Ko, one of the country’s largest law firms.
