Mr. Lee advises clients on a wide range of issues arising from antitrust and fair competition laws before government agencies as well as federal and state courts.  Mr. Lee's practice focuses on counseling clients to secure merger clearance before antitrust agencies, representing clients in complex antitrust/commercial litigation and arbitration proceedings, and defending against both civil and criminal investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
 
Merger Clearance
Mr. Lee actively advises clients involved in domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures during all stages of government regulatory process, including pre-acquisition analysis and compliance, Hart-Scott-Rodino filing, initial 30-day review, second request compliance, and merger remedy negotiations. 

Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Lee was staff attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, where he investigated and litigated several high-profile mergers in the retail, manufacturing, food, cable, e-commerce, and utilities industries.  Since joining the Firm in 2001, Mr. Lee acted as counsel to numerous domestic and cross-border transactions, including:

• Counsel for Grupo Bimbo, Mexico’s largest wholesale baking company, in its acquisition of the western U.S. baking business of George Weston Ltd. for US $610 million.  The acquisition, cleared without second request, established the client as one of the largest baking companies in the United States;
• Counsel for Grupo IMSA, a leading Mexican steel and industrial conglomerate, in its acquisition of MSC Pinole Point Steel, Inc.  The acquisition was cleared without second request;
• Counsel for Royal Ahold NV, the world’s third-largest food retailer, before the Federal Trade Commission in several acquisitions of various foodservice and supermarket chains within the United States;
• Counsel for third parties before both the FTC and DOJ to support/oppose proposed mergers or negotiate favorable remedy terms on behalf of clients.  Mr. Lee has represented third-party clients in several recent merger transactions, including the acquisition by First Data Corp. of Concord EFS, Inc.; the acquisition by Oracle Corp. of PeopleSoft, Inc.; and the acquisition by RJ Reynolds of British American Tobacco; and
• Counsel clients on the design and implementation of various joint venture and licensing agreements to comply with antitrust laws.  Recently, Mr. Lee has extensively advised clients on minimizing potential antitrust risks of various licensing, royalty, and non-compete provisions in such agreements, involving complex issues at the intersection of antitrust and patent laws.

Antitrust/Commercial Litigation
Mr. Lee also represents clients before federal and state courts in litigation that arises from complex antitrust and competition issues.  Recent matters worked on at the Firm include:

• Member of the trial team for SunGard Data Systems, Inc. in its successful defense of the acquisition of the computer disaster recovery assets from Comdisco.  United States v. SunGard Data Systems, Inc., 172 F. Supp. 2d 172 (D.D.C. 2001);
• Member of the trial team for UPM-Kymmene Oyj in the defense of its proposed acquisition of Morgan Adhesives Company. United States v. UPM Kymmene Oyj, et al., 2003-2 Trade Cases P 74,101;
• Member of the trial team for Upsher-Smith Laboratories in its successful defense against the FTC claims of illegal agreements and monopolization. In the Matter of Schering-Plough Corporation and Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc; and
• Counsel to a medical device manufacturer in a confidential arbitration proceeding on novel claims of anticompetitive acquisition and monopolization.

Criminal/Civil Investigations 
Mr. Lee also represents clients in a wide range of government criminal and civil investigations.  His significant recent experience includes:

• Counsel for Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group to coordinate the defense of parallel antitrust criminal and civil investigations in several jurisdictions, including the United States, South Korea and Canada.  Most recently, Mr. Lee, who is fluent in Korean, successfully defended the client before the Korean Fair Trade Commission proceedings as well;
• Counsel for Royal Ahold NV to coordinate successful defense of government investigations of its irregular accounting practices.  In reaching its precedent-setting decision to dismiss all claims against the client, the SEC lauded counsel’s cooperative representation as one of its reasons not to seek penalties; and
• Counsel for a leading U.S. web-hosting and Internet domain registrar in its successful defense against the FTC investigation of client’s marketing and advertising practices under the FTC Act.  The FTC closed its investigation without fines or penalties, while entering consent orders against several similarly situated firms.