Skip to main content

Practices

Korea Practice

Whether through M&A, joint ventures, or other strategic investments, our Korea practice guides Korean corporations, financial institutions, and emerging growth companies through every aspect of their inbound expansion and, when disputes arise, defends the investments they have made here in the U.S.

Results

We routinely counsel clients on U.S. market entry strategy, entity structuring and formation, corporate governance, and regulatory compliance. From preliminary structuring and due diligence through negotiation, closing, and post-acquisition integration, we provide big firm sophistication with Midwestern service and rates, tailoring our guidance to each client’s unique needs.

The full-service scope of our national firm also allows us to advise on underlying and ongoing operational matters, across practices, including:

  • Antitrust, competition, and trade regulation
  • Business restructuring, creditors’ rights, and bankruptcy
  • Commercial contracting
  • Commercial and public finance
  • Construction and site selection
  • Corporate formation and structuring
  • Corporate governance
  • Immigration (e.g., work visa and permanent sponsorship)
  • Intellectual property
  • International trade (e.g., import/export of goods and related governances)
  • Labor and employment
  • Complex litigation, arbitration, and mediation
  • Product regulatory compliance
  • Real estate (including structure, financing, and development)
  • Securities
  • Tax
  • Transportation

We continuously monitor changing economic and geopolitical conditions — such as developments involving tariffs or fluctuations in Bitcoin or other currencies — that may alter diversification plans or investment pace, helping ensure that our clients can anticipate risks and respond quickly to changing circumstances.

Examples of our experience include:

  • Counseling a Korea-based global asset manager on the acquisition, financing and refinancing, and disposition of commercial properties in Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
  • Representing subsidiaries of a Korea-based financial services firm in the acquisition and financing of e-commerce fulfillment centers and parcel distribution facilities in Illinois, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, and California, including a construction joint venture with an industrial developer for similar logistics facilities in a number of U.S. markets.
  • Assisting Korean investor groups in the acquisition, origination, and repositioning of more than $3 billion in mortgage and mezzanine debt.
  • Defending Korea-based corporations and their U.S. subsidiaries in complex commercial disputes, including contract, corporate ownership and partnership, asset distribution, securities, and intellectual property claims.
  • Prosecuting U.S.-based entities to recover multimillion-dollar damages based on contractual fraud and alter-ego theories.
  • Assisting in a business partnership divorce between a South Korea-based investor and a U.S.-based investor, which began with informal negotiations and later was formalized by a mutually agreed-upon written contract that resulted in saving both parties more than $10 million in damages.
  • Prosecuting a U.S.-based corporation on behalf of a South Korea-based corporation for investment fraud and misrepresentation, resulting in a $9 million recovery.