In October, Baker McKenzie entered into a joint venture with Korean law firm KL Partners in a show of the firm’s commitment to grow in Asia at a time when some other international firms were shrinking their footprints. The JV will be jointly run by Bakers’ Jae-Hyon Ahn and KL’s Beomsu Kim, who tell ALB how this will benefit clients in both Korea and overseas.
ALB: Tell us more about the strategic goals behind the joint venture and how it will complement Baker McKenzie’s offerings in Asia.
Jae-Hyon Ahn: The goal of our joint venture is quite simple: offering clients top-notch law advice that meets their evolving business interests and legal needs from one single platform.
Baker McKenzie has been advising clients in Korea for close to three decades and has been operating in Korea since 2013, advising clients on their cross-border activities, including development and financing of overseas projects, outbound M&A, and allowing clients to meet their international capital requirements.
As economies become more interconnected and legal issues become more complex, clients tell us that they want a one-stop shop for their domestic and international legal needs.
With our new joint venture with KL Partners, we can now expand our offerings and advise on Korean law. As the biggest international law firm in the country, we are able to better support multinational clients with their legal needs in Korea as they look to increase their presence in the country, make inbound investments, or resolve cross-border disputes. Korea-based clients also find this one-stop-shop service very appealing. As they are being served by a team that understands their business operation and local culture, they also gain access to the local-global law service with a full-service offering that Baker McKenzie provides across 18 practices in more than 70 locations.
ALB: From which specific market segment(s) will the new firm be capturing work?
Jae-Hyon Ahn and Beomsu Kim: We will continue to build on our successful existing practice areas which are energy and infrastructure development and financing, cross-border arbitration and litigation, and corporate/M&A. Through the establishment of the joint venture in Korea, we are now able to expand our client offerings further, which will enable us to continue to grow these areas for the new office. The joint venture will be starting from a position of strength as our Korea team has significant experience and a strong track record in these areas. The team has been widely recognised as market leaders in these sectors, including being ranked as the only Band 1 international law firm for Korea - Energy & Natural Resources by Chambers and Partners for the past 4 consecutive years and also highly ranked in the disputes resolution and corporate M&A sector in Korea.
Korea is the fourth largest economy in Asia. Its strong manufacturing, technology and healthcare sectors have attracted significant interest from overseas investors, particularly from Europe, Japan and the U.S., with investments oriented toward manufacturing, finance and insurance, trade, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing, as well as electric cars and biotechnology. With the various measures introduced by the government in recent years to attract foreign investment, we expect M&A and investment activities to remain robust.
Dispute resolution will be another bright spot. The economic cycle has become a key driver of disputes, and business leaders are expecting the number of disputes to continue to rise. With our bolstered dispute resolution service offerings, we now have much greater ability to support our clients on contentious matters onshore and offshore.
Over time, we expect demands for legal services in other areas to grow, particularly in tax, technology/licensing, global reorganisation, as complex dispute works covering multi-jurisdictions, just to name a few, as multinationals are increasingly looking to tap into the abundant business opportunities that Korea presents while Korean companies continue to venture overseas for new markets access and growth.
ALB: With the Korean legal market ebbing and flowing as some international firms recently reduced their footprint, what makes you decide that these are the right market conditions for such a move?
Ahn: The longer-term strategic needs of our clients is a key focus when shaping our strategy. This unwavering commitment to our clients can explain why Baker McKenzie is among the first batch of international law firms to establish an onshore presence in Korea; and when other firms have retreated, we stay put.
With the economy opening up further to international investments and with the gradual liberalisation of the legal sector, expanding our Korea service offering through the new joint venture will give us greater ability to service our clients' domestic and international legal needs.
Being able to advise on Korean law matters has always been a long-term goal of the firm since we started advising clients in Korea many years ago, and through the formation of our joint venture with KL Partners, we are now able to achieve such goal to finally be able to provide integrated Korean and cross border legal advice to our clients.
