Kim & Chang

Korea

Still leading the way in Korean competition law work is Kim & Chang. A mark of the firm’s elite status is the six nominations it holds to The International Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers & Economists, at least two more than any other firm in Korea. The firm was also voted Regional Firm of the Year – Asia-Pacific, Middle East & Africa during this year’s GCR Awards. Practice head Kyung Taek Jung is supported by 26 partners; Kim & Chang is by some distance the largest firm in the Korean antitrust community with around 160 lawyers.

In the merger control arena, the firm advised Publicis in its tie-up with Omnicom to create the world’s largest advertising agency, and represented Thermo Fischer in its acquisition of Life Technologies. In cartels, the firm successfully defended several soju producers before Korea’s Supreme Court over price-fixing allegations and represented Samsung Securities in successfully dismissing claims that it had conspired to fix the rate of public bonds.

Perhaps most significant is Kim & Chang’s work in abuse of dominance matters, where the firm secured Korea’s first ever consent decree in a KFTC investigation, in a case involving Naver, one of the country’s leading internet search portals. The firm also acted for Google in the KFTC’s abuse of dominance probe, which was dropped last year.