BAE, KIM & LEE LLC said on the 11th that it was selected as the "Dispute Resolution Firm of the Year" at "The Asia Legal Awards 2026."
The Asia Legal Awards is a legal awards event organized by Law.com International under the ALM group, which publishes the U.S. legal magazine The American Lawyer, among others. This year's ceremony was held on the 10th in Singapore.
TAEPYONGYANG was the only domestic firm to win in the "Firm of the Year" institutional sector, which evaluates firms' capabilities by practice area. Also nominated in this institutional sector were A&O Shearman, Freshfields, Latham & Watkins, Quinn Emanuel, and WongPartnership.
A key matter handled was the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) between Lone Star and the government of Korea. ISDS is a system that allows a foreign investor, if it determines it suffered losses due to measures by the host country, to seek compensation against the state through international arbitration.
TAEPYONGYANG represented the government of Korea in the annulment proceedings of the ICSID award in the Lone Star case. In November last year, the ICSID ad hoc committee annulled all portions of the award that had been unfavorable to Korea. As a result, the approximately 400 billion won liability for damages disappeared, the firm said.
In the corporate restructuring field, in financial disputes arising during the restructuring of Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, it represented creditor financial institutions including The Export-Import Bank of Korea and, after 11 years of litigation, won a Supreme Court ruling.
In the intellectual property field, representing Samsung Bioepis, it secured an invalidation ruling on the U.S. pharmaceutical company Regeneron's Eylea formulation patent for age-related macular degeneration. The preliminary injunction orders prohibiting the manufacture and sale of related biosimilars were also canceled.
Kang Dong-uk, an attorney in TAEPYONGYANG's international arbitration and litigation group, said, "This award is recognition on the international stage of the expertise and collaborative capabilities we have built across a range of areas, including international arbitration, corporate restructuring, and life sciences patent disputes," adding, "We will provide practical solutions to complex and critical disputes."