This article was displayed on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 5:25 p.m. on Nov. 28, 2025.
A legal battle over compensation worth hundreds of millions of won surrounding waste disposal company Ecorbit has begun. As both plaintiff and defendant have hired high-profile legal teams and the case grows, the amount in dispute is reported to be up to 50 billion to 60 billion won.
On the 28th, according to investment banking and legal sources, recently Taeyoung Group's TY Holdings appointed the law firm Lee & Ko as its representative in this compensation lawsuit.
Among TY Holdings' legal team were Kim Sang-gon, the chief executive officer and one of the country's most renowned M&A lawyers, as well as lead attorney Kang Young-su and attorneys Kim Dong-Won, Yeon Je-heon, Won Hye-su and Ha Tae-han.
Lee & Ko has close ties with TY Holdings. Choi Geum-rak, vice chairman of TY Holdings, formerly served as an adviser at Lee & Ko before moving to Taeyoung Group in 2023.
Lee & Ko was also partially involved in the Ecorbit acquisition. At the time, it provided legal advice representing the acquisition financing institutions for the buyer, the IMM consortium.
Earlier, the IMM Private Equity and IMM Investment consortium filed a lawsuit in September at the Seoul Central District Court seeking damages against global private equity firm KKR and Taeyoung Group.
KKR and Taeyoung Group, which each held half of Ecorbit's shares, sold all their stakes to the IMM consortium for 2.07 trillion won, and not long after the acquisition was completed, in February of this year, Ecorbit Green Cheongju received a one-month business suspension and fines for poor leachate management.
IMM originally tried to claim insurance from U.S. insurer Liberty Mutual, but judged that it would be difficult to receive payout if the sellers Taeyoung and KKR had intentionally concealed the leachate issue, so it filed suit. Separately, immediately after the leachate was discovered, a provisional seizure was placed on the account of KKR's special purpose company (SPC), leaving a substantial portion of the sale proceeds still frozen.
KKR retained attorneys Bang Tae-kyung, Hwang Byung-ho, Bae Su-ho and Son Da-sol of KIM&CHANG. With Lee & Ko representing TY Holdings in this matter, KIM&CHANG and Lee & Ko now stand on the same side.
The IMM consortium that filed the damages suit also strengthened its legal team. It hired Yoon & Yang LLC, naming litigation heavyweights including former lead attorney Yoo Seung-ryong and lead attorney Lee Dong-geun, as well as stars in litigation, management disputes and advisory roles such as Lee Sang-pil, Yoo Jeong-seok, Jang Hwang-rim, Jeong Ho-seong, Kim Yeon-gak and Lee Jeong-hoon.
The size of the damages suit is reported to be about 50 billion to 60 billion won. An industry source said, "There were talks it could reach the 100 billion won level, but in reality it will be much less than that."