MILBANK OPENS OFFICE IN SEOUL, KOREA

New office to be headed by Milbank partner and Korean native Young Joon Kim. Seoul office will help firm better serve active Korea practice, including work with key government agencies.

Adding an important hub to its longstanding Asia practice, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP announced it is opening a Foreign Legal Consultant Office in Seoul, Korea. The new office will be headed by Milbank partner Young Joon Kim, a Korean native who started his career with Milbank in New York, and for the past decade has been based in the firm’s Hong Kong office. Mr. Kim was managing partner of Milbank’s Tokyo office from 1997-2003.

One of the first U.S. law firms to establish an Asia-based practice in the mid-1970s, Milbank has a long history of doing business in Korea, well before foreign law firms began to be licensed to practice in the country in 2012.

Milbank represents leading international and Korean corporations, financial institutions and government agencies on a wide variety of sophisticated in-bound and out-bound transactions, including project finance, M&A and private equity investments, and disputes, as well as cutting-edge aviation and transportation finance. The firm frequently advises on large project financings with support from official export-credit agencies, the Export-Import Bank of Korea (K-Exim) and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-sure).

“We are delighted to establish our newest office in Seoul and to have a permanent, central address from which to serve our many Korean clients as well as international companies doing business in Korea,” said Milbank Chairman Scott Edelman.

“Given the extensive working relationships we have inside Korea’s public and private sectors, it will be a great advantage to have a full-time office closer to our clients – and to better coordinate with our offices globally, in Asia, Europe and Latin America, as well as the U.S.,” Mr. Edelman added. Milbank now has a dozen offices worldwide, including in Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore in Asia.

Mr. Kim has handled a long list of major cross-border transactions from Korea, including financings in the power, petrochemicals, semiconductors, steel and mining sectors, aviation finance transactions, and complex transactions in the financial services sector. “Our Korea practice, which is thriving, will naturally benefit from having a local presence in Seoul, affording us even closer ties to our clients and to new opportunities for work on transactions, as well as potentially in disputes and general business advice,” Mr. Kim said. “Personally, I am also looking forward to coming home to practice after spending so many years based outside Korea.”

Having attended a leading high school in Korea, Mr. Kim graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School. He is regarded as one of the leading lawyers’ active in Korea.