Shin & Kim LLC on the 5th launched a "corporate criminal trial team" to provide professional and systematic responses to criminal cases involving officers and employees of corporations.
Shin & Kim LLC's corporate criminal trial team plans to broadly respond to all types of criminal cases related to corporations, including property crimes such as breach of trust and embezzlement; capital market and financial crimes; crimes involving taxes, industrial property rights and corruption; crimes in new business areas such as virtual asset; cases related to the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act; fair trade and election crimes; and medical, pharmaceutical and environmental crimes.
The Head of Team of the corporate criminal trial team will be attorney Choi Chang-young (Judicial Research and Training Institute class 24), who served as presiding judge of a criminal panel at the Seoul Central District Court and as senior judge at the Daejeon High Court. Choi served as presiding judge of a criminal panel at the Seoul Central District Court, criminal policy deliberation officer and director of information and communications management at the National Court Administration, and senior judge at the Daejeon High Court before founding Law Firm Haekwang, where Choi worked as managing partner, and joined Shin & Kim LLC in May last year.
Choi is regarded as having contributed to the not-guilty verdicts in the first and second trials concerning Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong's alleged unfair merger and accounting fraud.
Also leading the practice are attorney Choi Han-soon (class 27), who handled numerous criminal cases while specializing in fair trade and labor cases at the Seoul High Court; attorney Kang Moon-kyung (class 28), a former Seoul High Court judge well-versed in criminal cases across the public law sphere, including fair trade, taxes and labor; attorney Kim Se-jong (class 30), who served as criminal judicial support officer at the National Court Administration and head of the operations support team of the Supreme Court Sentencing Commission; attorney Ha Tae-heon (class 33), the only attorney in Korea with senior judge experience who is also a former medical professional; and attorney Do Hoon-tae (class 33), a former Supreme Court research judge and expert in criminal tax cases.
In addition, managing partner Jung Jin-ho (class 20), who oversees Shin & Kim LLC's litigation practice; attorney Kim Yong-ho (class 25), who has handled many criminal cases related to construction and urban redevelopment projects; attorney Cho Chan-young (class 29), a former Seoul High Court judge; attorney Kwon Sun-yeol (class 31); and attorney Yoon Ju-tak (class 33), who served as a judge at the Intellectual Property High Court and as a specialized high court judge in the intellectual property division at the Seoul High Court, will also join to create synergy.
The reason Shin & Kim LLC organized the corporate criminal trial team is that criminal cases involving officers and employees of corporations do not end with individual criminal punishment but have a significant impact on overall corporate management, including corporate liability under joint penal provisions, large employer liability, bid restrictions, and damage to corporate image due to disclosures and media reports. In corporate criminal cases, the initial response direction of the investigation often determines the course and outcome of the case, and at the trial stage, professional responses to complex facts and legal principles are essential.
Shin & Kim LLC managing partner Oh Jong-han said, "Corporate criminal cases go beyond simple criminal disputes and are directly linked to the survival and management stability of corporations," adding, "Shin & Kim LLC's corporate criminal trial team will do its best to minimize corporations' criminal risks through strategic responses that pinpoint the essence of cases from the initial investigation stage through criminal trials."