Yoo Kyung Moon

Yoo Kyung Moon is a partner and foreign legal consultant in the Antitrust Practice Group in the firm's Seoul office. Previously, she was an antitrust associate in the firm’s San Francisco Office, and worked out of the firm’s Shanghai Office before joining the firm’s Foreign Legal Consultant Office in Seoul. She has also served as Senior Legal Counsel at the Global Legal Affairs & Compliance Team of Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd. at its headquarters in Seoul.

Areas of Practice

Yoo Kyung specializes in complex business litigation and white collar criminal matters with an emphasis on antitrust and unfair competition issues. She has significant experience defending multinational businesses in criminal and civil proceedings involving the U.S. Department of Justice and foreign enforcement agencies. She also advises clients on various corporate compliance matters including developing and implementing antitrust audit and compliance programs and providing compliance training for executives and employees.

In addition, Yoo Kyung provides counseling for multinational businesses regarding overseas investment or operations involving multijurisdictional coordination including Korea and China and liaises between the Firm’s attorneys and local counsel in Korea for client matters involving business or disputes in Korea. Sheppard Mullin’s Dispute Resolution (International Firms) Practice has been highly ranked by Chambers’ Asia-Pacific South Korea for several years.

Yoo Kyung also has experience on the development of China’s Anti-monopoly Law practice as well as recent enforcement trends and cases.

As regularly advising multinational clients based in Korea and overseas, Yoo Kyung handles cross-border data transfer and protection issues with data protection and privacy experts across the continents and counsels on various multidisciplinary regulatory matters.

Experience

• Counseling multinational electronics and IT manufacturers on a wide range of matters including high profile strategic advice, regulatory compliance, technology licensing, strategic overseas investment and large-scale commercial transactions and disputes.  
• Providing antitrust and corporate compliance counseling to Samsung Venture Investment Corporation in connection with overseas investments.
• Advised SK Telecom on overseas investment projects.
• Provided trade and investment regulatory counseling to SK materials.
• Developed multidisciplinary regulatory compliance training program for Hanwha Total in relation to its overseas operations.

• Provided antitrust and corporate compliance counseling to Hanwha Q CELLS in relation to global operations.

• Counseled an auto parts manufacturer on antitrust and IP licensing issues.
• Defense of Samsung SDI America in a class action alleging defects in the batteries for the Note 7 Smartphone, George Schmidt et al vs. Samsung Electronics America, Samsung Electronics Co. and Samsung SDI America (W.D. Wa)

• Defense of Samsung SDI and related entities in DOJ grand jury criminal price fixing and foreign enforcement investigations involving cathode ray tubes and related direct and indirect civil class actions.

• Defense of Samsung Electronics and related entities in DOJ grand jury criminal price fixing and foreign enforcement investigations involving TFT-LCD and related direct and indirect civil class actions.

• Defense of Samsung Electronics and related entities in DOJ grand jury criminal price fixing and foreign enforcement investigations involving SRAM and FLASH memory chips.
• Defended a national construction company in DOJ grand jury criminal bid rigging investigation.
• Defense of Samsung Electronics in defense of trademark infringement claims asserted by Research In Motion (“RIM”) involving Samsung’s “BlackJack” and “Black Carbon” and RIM’s “BlackBerry”.
• Defense of Samsung Electronics in multi-billion dollar litigation against Rambus.
• Reviewed independent contractor agreement issues relating to a Canadian children’s educational entertainment program producer's investment in Korea in terms of IP issues, and liaised between lead counsel and local counsel in Korea.
• Liaised between IP counsel for TaylorMade Golf and Korean local counsel on IP and customs counseling.

Honors

Recommended by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2016 - Foreign firms, 2016

Articles

• "Analysis of the KFTC's Decision on the Hite-Jinro Pre-Merger Review" under the supervision of Professor Daniel L. Rubinfeld, Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, Department of Justice. Also, she served as Research Assistant to Professor Harry First, New York University School of Law, Research Project on United States v. Topco Associates, 406 U.S. 596 (1972) at Library of Congress, Summer 2006
• "Extraterritorial Application of Korean Antitrust Laws: Analysis of the KFTC's Graphite Electrode International Cartel Case" under the supervision of Professor Robert Pitofsky, Former Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission

Antitrust Law Blog Posts

• "Korea Passes Foreign Legal Consultant Act, Opening the Country's Legal Service Market to Law Firms in Foreign Countries that are Parties to Effective Free Trade Agreements with Korea," April 13, 2009

China Law Blog Posts

• "New Export Control Law: China Strengthens its Regulatory 'Great Wall'," November 17, 2020

U.S. Legal Insights for Korean Businesses Blog Posts

• "한∙미 경쟁당국, 경쟁분야 협력에 관한 업무협약 체결 (US and Korea Competition Authorities Signed MOU on Competition Cooperation)," October 5, 2015

Media Mentions

Speaking Engagements

• Lecturer, "Global Antitrust Enforcement Trends and Investigation Response Strategy," 2017 In-house Counsel Symposium, Korea In-House Counsel Association and Korean Bar Association, Seoul, Republic of Korea, December 2017
• Mentor-Panelist, "Career Planning and Development - Law Practice," Georgetown Alumni Club Korea Summer 2016 Career Mentoring Event, Seoul, Republic of Korea, August 2016
• Speaker, “On Your Way to China? – Basic ABCs for Corporate Investment in China," Korea In-house Counsel Association, Seoul, Republic of Korea, October 2014
• Mentor-Panelist, "Career Planning and Development - Law Practice," Georgetown Alumni Club Korea Summer 2014 Career Mentoring Event, Seoul, Republic of Korea, June 2014
• Lecturer, “International Antitrust Enforcement Trends and Investigation Response Strategy”, Thomson-Reuters Compliance Officer Training Program, Seoul, Republic of Korea, March 2013
• Mentor-Panelist, “Career Planning and Development – Law Practice,” Georgetown Alumni Club Korea Summer 2012 Career Mentoring Event, Seoul, Republic of Korea, August 2012
• Guest Speaker, “Pursuing a Career in Antitrust Practice,” Office of Career Services, New York University Law School, New York, NY, April 2010
• Panelist, “Career Planning and Development,” 2010 Alumni Mingle Event for Undergraduate and Graduate Students, Korean International Students Organization, New York University, New York, NY, March 2010
• Panelist, “Roundtable Discussion with Women Attorneys, Scholars and Activists About the Progress of Women’s Rights Abroad,” D.C. Bar International Law Section, Washington, DC, March 2006

Events

Memberships

Member, Committee Steering Group, International Antitrust Law Committee, American Bar Association

Member, Antitrust Law Section and International Law Section, American Bar Association

Member (Foreign Legal Consultant), Korean Bar Association

Member, Korea In-House Counsel Association

Alumni Ambassador, Georgetown Law International

Digital Media