MICHAEL S. KIM

michael.kim@kobrekim.com

New York:
800 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022
Tel. +1 212 488 1201
Fax. +1 212 488 1221

London:
60 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7BB
Tel. +44 (0) 20 3301 5701
Fax. +44 (0) 20 3301 5721

Michael S. Kim, a co-founder of the Firm, regularly serves as lead counsel in high-stakes international financial disputes and criminal investigations.

Mr. Kim is a well-known advocate in complex financial disputes, particularly in the financial services industry, international judgment enforcement, and insolvency contexts.  He has served as lead counsel in numerous cross-border disputes involving US $100 million+ relating to structured products, hedge funds, joint ventures, bankruptcy/debtor-creditor litigation, and international judgment enforcement and asset tracing.  Mr. Kim has served as an expert witness on debtor-creditor laws in the courts of the Cayman Islands, and is co-author of the book Debtor-Creditor Fraud (West Publishing).

Mr. Kim also practices in the area of international criminal law and internal investigations.  He has served as lead counsel in numerous international investigations in South America, Europe and Asia on behalf of Special or Audit Committees of Boards of Directors of public companies.  He also represents private clients in addressing investigations or prosecutions by law enforcement authorities, with special emphasis on FCPA, antitrust, tax and accounting fraud, and securities/commodity futures laws.  Mr. Kim has served as an expert witness on international criminal law in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and lectures regularly on various specialized topics in this area.  He has also served as a contributing author to the treatise Antitrust Law Developments, and published articles in the Journal of Financial Crime (UK).

Prior to establishing Kobre & Kim LLP, he served as an Assistant U.S Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (DOJ-SEC-CFTC Securities & Commodities Fraud Task Force).  While serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Kim focused on white-collar criminal cases, many of which involved international and domestic asset tracing and forfeiture proceedings.

Before his time at the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Kim practiced at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Before his legal career, Mr. Kim served as a U.S. Army infantry officer.

Recent Engagements:

Financial Services Litigation and Contests for Corporate Control:

• Representation of institutional investors in judicial actions and arbitrations against JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and other banks regarding more than US $2 billion of disputed structured products
• Representation of several feeder funds and a global hedge fund administrator to a feeder fund in the US $50 billion+ "Ponzi scheme" associated with Bernard Madoff
• Representation of a consortium of hedge funds as victims of US $2 billion+ "Ponzi scheme" involving Petters Worldwide
• Advice to an institutional client in connection with alleged dilution of minority shareholders from contemplated merger and capital restructuring transaction of a public company, involving several hundred million dollars in controversy
• Representation of a Latin American private investment firm and majority shareholder against a major New York financial institution in AAA arbitration in contest for corporate control of a Mexican public utility with US $350 million in revenues

International Insolvency Litigation / Judgment Enforcement & Offshore Asset Recovery:

• Representation of several creditors in bankruptcy proceeding of Lehman Brothers relating to aggregate claims exceeding US $10 billion
• Representation of a government in enforcement of US $100 million+ judgment against debtors with assets structured in numerous offshore vehicles and shell companies throughout Europe, Asia, and offshore jurisdictions
• Representation of a South American institutional borrower against a consortium of major New York and European banks over US $750 million of allegedly defaulted loans and bonds
• Representation of the Trustee in Bankruptcy of Parmalat SpA, in connection with Italian and Cayman Islands insolvency proceedings against Wells Fargo Bank and Bank of America relating to more than US $200 million of disputed claims

Government Enforcement Defense:

• Representation of a former KPMG partner in the highly-publicized federal criminal prosecution related to BLIPS tax products, resulting in a dismissal of all criminal charges
• Representation of Brian Hunter, the former co-head of energy trading at Amaranth, a US $9 billion hedge fund, in connection with regulatory enforcement litigation against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Representation of Tongsun Park, a well-known international lobbyist, in connection with a federal criminal prosecution of the "Oil for Food" scandal
• Representation of a former Cabinet Minister of the Russian Federation in international criminal issues
• Representation of the former Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations in international extradition proceedings
• Representation of a NASDAQ market maker targeted in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission insider trading investigation

Investigations & Monitorships:

• Representation of the Audit Committee of a European company in conducting an internal investigation into operations in Eastern Europe, in connection with alleged FCPA, accounting, and antitrust violations
• Representation of the Audit Committee of a U.S. public company in conducting an internal investigation into operations in South America, in connection with alleged FCPA violations, accounting fraud, and embezzlement issues

News & Publications:

Mr. Kim is regularly called upon to lecture about and present papers on topics in the firm's core areas of practice:

• International Insolvency Litigation, Judgment Enforcement and Offshore Asset Recovery:
• Assistance/Enforcement of UK Asset Recovery in the USA (Asset Recovery: Criminal Confiscation and Civil Recovery conference, London, United Kingdom, October 2007)
• Responding To A U.S. Assertion Of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction In Fraud Cases To Safeguard The Interests Of The Client (Fraud, Asset Tracing & Recovery conference, London, United Kingdom, September 2007)
• Assessing the Impact of UK and US Long-Arm Jurisdiction on European Fraud Cases: Strategies for Responding Effectively (Fraud & Asset Tracing & Recovery conference, Geneva, Switzerland, June 2007)
• Government Enforcement Defense:
• Criminal Tax Shelter Prosecutions (International Bar Association conference, Prague, Czech Republic, September 2005)
• International Antitrust Investigations & Compliance (Osaka, Japan, October 2005)
• Cartel Prosecutions in the United States (Auckland, New Zealand, October 2004)
• Securities Fraud Enforcement (Visiting Lecturer, Harvard Law School, January 2007)
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act & Foreign Investigations (Government Investigation Preparedness for the Pharmaceutical Industry, New York, January 2007)
• U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (International Bar Association conference, Madrid, Spain, June 2006)

Mr. Kim has also been published on topics in the firm's core areas of expertise:

• Debtor-Creditor Fraud 2009-2010 Edition (West (2009))
• A Guide to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (New York City Bar Association (2007))
• "The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995", 18, The Company Lawyer 29 (1997)
• "Periodic Bank Statements in U.S. Cheque Fraud Litigation", 3, Journal of Financial Crime 370 (1996)
• "Super-Priority of Securities Intermediaries under the New Section 9-115(5) of the Uniform Commercial Code", 108, Harvard Law Review 1937 (1995)
• Antitrust Law Developments (5th ed. American Bar Association) (contributing author)

Education:

• Harvard Law School, J.D.
  Harvard Law Review (Executive Editor)
  
• Harvard College, B.A.

Admissions:

• New York
• Connecticut
• U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut
• U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
• U.S. Court of Federal Claims
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• United Kingdom, Registered Foreign Lawyer
• Hong Kong, Registered Foreign Lawyer