Yoon & Yang opens Ho Chi Minh City office

Scheduled to be opened on November 29, 2016, it will be the firm’s second overseas office, after it first ventured overseas with a presence in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 2008.

The new office will be headed by Zunu Lee, the firm’s South-East Asian practice head, who will lead a team comprising one other partner, HyongKun Kim, and local Vietnamese lawyers and professionals.

“Vietnam appears to be the most appropriate hub for the South-East Asian practice as the country has shown a great potential for economic growth and yet widely opened its legal market,” said Lee, who added that the new office will enable the firm to extend its existing involvement in the region. “Since the South-East Asian legal market is a highly competitive market with a variety of law firms from all over the world, the new Ho Chi Minh City office is not purported to be a standalone regional office.”

Lee, who is admitted in Korea and New York, has 16 years of experience practising in areas such as cross-border M&A and investments, financial transactions and regulations, and international arbitrations, representing a variety of domestic and foreign clients.

Kim, who joined the firm as a partner in August 2016, has experience in South-East Asia, including Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, where he provided on-the-ground support and advice for Korean and foreign companies on a full range of legal matters from cross-border transactions to regional operations.

The team also includes Hyun Woo Dang, who joined as an expert adviser in September. He is a Vietnamese-qualified lawyer who previously worked at the Hanoi offices of Jipyong and Logos Law.

Yoon & Yang’s existing South-East Asian practice has advised clients on various legal issues and challenges related to M&A, construction and real estate, banking and finance, natural resources exploitation and dispute resolution.