Kim & Chang

Banking; Derivatives; Non-Bank Financial Companies; Structured Finance; Acquisition Finance; Fintech & IT Compliance

Sang Hwan Lee is a senior attorney at Kim & Chang’s Finance & Capital Markets Department.

Recognized as one of the premier finance lawyers in Korea, Mr. Lee practices in a wide range of areas related to finance, with a focus on banking, securities laws and regulations, and mergers and acquisitions of financial institutions. He also has extensive experience advising clients in transactions and disputes involving financial derivatives, structured finance and corporate finance matters. As a member of the Japan Practice at the firm, Mr. Lee also advises a broad range of Japanese financial institutions.

Mr. Lee’s representative matters in recent years include advising on major M&As and restructurings of domestic banks and post-transaction integration, disputes related to financial derivatives products, and financial institutions’ information leakage cases. He also has represented financial institutions investigated by the Financial Supervisory Service, the Fair Trade Commission and the Prosecutors’ Office.

Mr. Lee has acted as an outside advisor to the Ministry of Finance and Economy as a member of the ministry’s Financial Industry Deliberation Committee. He was also a member of the ministry’s Task Force for Improvement of Credit Information System.

He also worked as a foreign visiting attorney at Matsuo & Kosugi in Tokyo in 1990 and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton in New York in 1993.

Mr. Lee has regularly authored various publications, including the “Banking Regulation Review (1st-5th Edition): Korea chapter” (Law Business Research, 2010-2014) and “Getting the Deal Through - Banking Regulation (1st-6th Edition): Korea chapter” (Law Business Research, 2008-2015). He also co-authored the “IFLR February 2012 - Basel III Guide 2012: Korea chapter” (IFLR, 2012) and the “Guide to Lending and Taking Security in Asia (2nd-3rd Edition): Korea chapter” (Herbert Smith, 2010 & 2014).

Mr. Lee received an LL.M. from Cornell Law School in 1993 and an LL.B. from Seoul National University College of Law in 1982. Mr. Lee graduated from the Judicial Research and Training Institute of the Supreme Court of Korea in 1984 and is admitted to the New York bar and the Korea bar.

Korean, English and Japanese

Admitted to bar, Korea, 1984; New York, 1997

Cornell Law School, New York (LL.M., 1993) Judicial Research and Training Institute of the Supreme Court of Korea (1984) College of Law, Seoul National University (LL.B., 1982)