Practice areas

Arbitration & ADR; bankruptcy & insolvency; defence; litigation; shipping

Introduction

Kwon Tae Il is renowned internationally for his wide experience and exceptional understanding of both wet and dry cases. He has handled not only collision, general average, vessel arrest, memorandum of agreement and shipbuilding disputes cases but also charter party dispute, cargo claim and crew cases on behalf of the owners, charterers of the vessel and esteemed P&I clubs including Gard, Steamship Mutual, North of England, Britannia, the Swedish Club, Standard Club, London P&I, West of England, Skuld, Japan P&I, Korea P&I and the Korean Shipowners’ Association.

He also accumulated wide experience in the rehabilitation of shipping giants in Korea like Korea Line, STX Pan Ocean and Hanjin Shipping, etc., acting for over a hundred rehabilitation creditors, and also worked with prominent English shipping law firms such as HFW, Reed Smith, CJC, Norton Rose Fulbright, MFB and Mays Brown Solicitors. Also, he has been recently instructed for huge casualty cases like the MV “Stellar Banner” case, which was finally closed by CTL for an insurance sum of USD92 million.

Previous cases:

• Consulted IG clubs for their members’ cargo claim, insolvency matters, time charter disputes and wet cases and received good outcomes.
• Consulted prominent domestic and international shipping companies such as SK Shipping, Hyundai Glovis, HMM, EUKOR Car Carriers and Sinokor in litigation proceedings involving the defence of the cargo claim, collision case, crew matters and time-charter party disputes.
• Collaborated with HFW, Reed Smith, CJC, Norton Rose Fulbright, Hill Dickinson, MFB, Penningtons Manches Cooper and Mays Brown et al in UK and Okabe & Yamaguchi in Japan to provide legal opinions for domestic litigation, international arbitration and rehabilitation and bankruptcy proceedings in relation to shipping dispute and insolvency issues.
• Acted for an Indonesian coal company (PT Limas Tunggal) against Korean Power companies for the claim amount of USD17 million.
• Acted for Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance and Korean Reinsurance Company in the largest casualty, MV “Stellar Banner” case in 2020.

Education

Tae Il Kwon received his LLM maritime law degree (with merits) in December 2017 at the University of Southampton, UK, broadening his knowledge in English maritime law and marine insurance law to build up his expertise, and providing guidance to the associates to promote and develop the performance quality of the team.

Kwon Tae Il graduated from the department of Economics at Seoul National University in 1992 and Judicial Research and Training Institute of the Korean Supreme Court in 2000.

Publications

• “The Financial Conduct Authority (Appellant) v Arch Insurance(UK) Ltd and others (Respondents) [2021] UKSC 1”, the Korean Maritime Law Association Archives (the Korean Maritime Law Association), May 2021
• “Subrogation against co-insured under English law”, the Korean Maritime Law Association Archives (the Korean Maritime Law Association), November 2017
• “A Study on Judicial Precedents of Korea and Foreign Jurisdiction Regarding Oil Pollution Damages”, Research commissioned by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, March 2008
• “Commercial Code Cases” (Published by Hanul)

Award

Kwon Tae Il was awarded “Leading Lawyer 100 Asia Pacific” by Lawyer Monthly in 2011 and also has been recommended as a Leading Lawyer in Shipping by Chambers Asia-Pacific since 2013. He has been selected as Leading Individual in Shipping by Legal 500 since 2014 and listed as Korea’s Top 100 lawyers by Asia Business Law Journal in 2021 and 2022.

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