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Kim, Ki Young
Introduction
Ki Young Kim is a partner at Yulchon and specializes in M&A and corporate law. In addition to advising on a full range of insolvency and restructuring, overseas investment, and antitrust matters, Ki Young leads Yulchon"s Healthcare Practice Team. He has written a comprehensive theoretical analysis of unfair subsidies (SNU, LL.M. thesis), which has influenced subsequent studies and Supreme Court decisions. He was an advisor on two of the “Top 3 Best M&A transactions in Korea” identified by the Korea Economic Daily Market Insight in January 2012, which were STX’s acquisition of STX Pan Ocean and Jinro’s sale to Hite Consortium. He also advised on numerous landmark M&A transactions including SK Telecom’s acquisition of Shinsegi Telecommunication, KB Bank’s merger with Housing & Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered Bank’s acquisition of the Korea First Bank, KB Financial Group’s acquisition of Hannuri Investment & Securities, Macquarie Consortium’s acquisition of Megabox, and GS Group’s acquisition of Ssangyong. In addition to friendly M&A, he has extensive experience and expertise in hostile M&A and shareholder’s activism through defending SK Telecom, SKC&C, SK, Union Steel, Hyundai Heavy Industry, Hyundai Elevator, and KT&G, among others. Furthermore, he has extensive experience advising on antitrust and fair trade matters. This includes cases on domestic and international merger control and filing, unfair subsidies by major Korean conglomerates, abuse of status in trading, domestic and international cartels and unfair trade practices. He is recognized as one of the very few leading lawyer who has expertise both in M&A and Antitrust. In addition, he is the sole lawyer who has advised all the recent workout cases in Korea conditioned to public bonds’ rescheduling and debt-equity swap (i.e. STX, Dongbu Metal, POSCO Plantech and Hyundai Merchant Marine cases) and thus, recognized as the unrivaled expert in the out-of-the-court restructuring in Korea.
- 2003 University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, LL.M.
- 2001 Seoul National University, Graduate Department of Law, LL.M.
- 1998 Judicial Research and Training Institute, the Supreme Court of Korea
- 1993 Seoul National University, Department of Law, LL.B.
- 1998-present Yulchon LLC
- 2025-present Vice Chair, Judicial Liquidations Subcommittee, Insolvency Section, International Bar Association
- 2022-present Member, Corporate Review Committee of KOSDAQ Market
- 2022-present Advisor, Restructuring Advisory Committee of UAMCO
- 2015-present Outside legal counsel, Korea Medical Devices Industry Association
- 2015-present Outside legal counsel, Korea Food Industry Association
- 2014-present Outside legal counsel, Korea Cosmetic Association
- 2014-present Outside legal counsel, Korea Pharmaceutical Traders Association
- 2014-present Advisor, Legal Advisory Group for SME overseas in Ministry of Justice
- 2013-present Member, Seoul St. Mary Hospital IRB
- 2006 Admitted to Bar , New York
- 1998 Admitted to Bar , Republic of Korea
Korean, English
Representative Matters
- 2021 Advised Santera (Ireland) on its acquisition of global assets of Pheonix Technologies (US)
- 2021 Advise Hellman&Friedman on its acquisition of cardiovascular unit of Cardinal Health
- 2021 Advised Guardant Health (US) on its Pre-IPO investment in and business partnership project with Lunit, AI medical device company
- 2020 Advised on the JV deal for December & Company, an AI asset management company of KB Securities
- 2020 Advised KB Financial Group on issue of convertible bonds to Carlyle Group
- 2020 Advised GC Healthcare on its acquisition of UB care
- 2020 Advised UAMCO on its acquisition of Posco Plantec
- 2019 Advised on the sale of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering to Hyundai Heavy
- 2018 Advised a multinational company on market access for an orphan drug
- 2018 Advised on a Korean company on performance of NECA procedures
Awards/Recognition
- 2024-2025 Leading Lawyer, M&A, Financial and corporate, Restructuring and insolvency, IFLR 1000
- 2016 The World’s Leading Banking and Finance Lawyers - Banking, Finance and Transactional Guide 2016, Euromoney Expert Guide
News/Publications
Recent notable Supreme Court decisions concerning tax problems with illegal rebates offered by pharmaceutical or medical device companies, Lexology(2015) download
The Korean Drug Approval-Patent Linkage System: A Comparison with the US Hatch-Waxman Act, Lexology(2015) download
Recent notable Supreme Court decisions concerning tax problems with illegal rebates offered by pharmaceutical or medical device companies, Lexology(2015) download
Legal Issues Related to Mergers Between Financial Institutes, BFL vol.7(2004)
A Different View of the Intra-Enterprise Conspiracy Doctrine: An Analaysis of the Copperweld Decision, Its Effect on Subsequent Decisions, and a Comparison to Korean Antitrust Law, University of California, Berkeley (LL. M. thesis)(2003)
Unfairness in Unfair Trade Practice under the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, Competition Law Research(2002)
Prohibition of Unfair Subsidies under the the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, Department of Law, Graduate School, Seoul National University (LL.M. thesis)(2001)
