A Seoul law office that does its own enforcement.
K-DebtCollect is the cross-border recovery practice of Leviathan Law Office, a Korean law office in Gangnam, Seoul. Foreign creditors reach us because the debtor, the bank account or the real estate is in Korea, and because recovery here turns on knowing the enforcement machinery rather than on the wording of the demand.
We are the attorney of record, not an intermediary
Collection in Korea is regulated work. A credit information company may pursue an amicable demand but cannot litigate; a law office can do both, and can therefore move from a demand letter to a provisional attachment without handing your file to anyone else. Every matter here is taken under a power of attorney in the name of Leviathan Law Office, with Hyunseo Lim as the attorney of record.
The practice behind the recovery work
The firm's civil enforcement practice runs to several hundred compulsory and voluntary auctions, provisional attachments, garnishments of deposits, insurance proceeds, wages and dividends, attachments of unlisted shares, trust beneficiary rights, patents and pre-sale rights, seizures of movables and vehicles, asset disclosure and court asset searches, entries in the register of defaulters, and injunctions against transfer of possession and against disposal — with a substantial record of successful objections and appeals within enforcement proceedings themselves.
Cross-border is the ordinary case, not the exception
We have recovered domestic Korean debts for creditors based in Hong Kong, India, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway and the Netherlands, established Korean branches for foreign entities, and advised on cross-border matters from a resort pre-sale dispute in Da Nang to plant EPC contracts. Where a foreign judgment or arbitral award has to be turned into something a Korean bailiff can act on, we run the recognition proceedings too.
What we will not do
We will not take a matter we do not think is collectable without telling you so first, and we will not quote a discount we have not agreed. Where the honest answer is that the debtor is empty, or that the claim has prescribed, or that your money is better spent filing in an insolvency proceeding, that is the answer you get in the first week.
Three people, no case handlers between you and them.
Several hundred disputes across civil, criminal and corporate litigation, including civil enforcement and special debt recovery matters worth hundreds of billions of won.
A hands-on lawyer who has run businesses himself across finance, media, real estate, services and entertainment, and who led the first project in Korea to bring an AI-based real estate assessment system into the financial sector — work recognised with ministerial awards from both the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. Since winning the grand prize in the criminal division of the Gain Moot Court Competition he has practised as a principal. His recovery work includes domestic collection for creditors from Hong Kong, India, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway and the Netherlands, recovery of mortgage loan receivables for financial institutions, and enforcement of pledges over trust beneficiary rights.
Seoul National University School of Law, J.D. · SNU BBA · Daewon Foreign Language High School (Chinese)
Attorney-at-Law, Republic of Korea · Licensed Real Estate Agent
Korean, English, Chinese
Eleven years and ten months commanding in the field before the law, and tax appeals and corporate advisory work after it.
A graduate of the Korea Military Academy who was selected for the study-in-Germany programme open only to a very small number of top cadets, majoring in German Area Studies. He commanded as a GOP outpost commander, reconnaissance platoon leader and mechanised infantry company commander, completed the German battalion commanders' course, studied at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, and retired as a captain after serving as brigade operations officer. He then qualified through Inha University Law School on a full scholarship and practised tax appeals and corporate advisory work at a tax firm.
Inha University Law School, J.D. (full scholarship) · Korea Military Academy, German Area Studies
Attorney-at-Law, Republic of Korea
Korean, German, English
A former senior examiner at Korea's Financial Supervisory Service, for the cases where the debtor is a financial institution or the asset sits inside one.
As a senior examiner at the Financial Supervisory Service he supervised and examined the banking sector and took charge of reviewing and improving lending regulation such as LTV and DSR, examining the adequacy of financial institutions' internal controls under the Capital Markets Act and the Financial Consumer Protection Act. He handled agreements and liaison with international bodies including IOSCO and IAIS, responded to the IMF and AMRO annual consultations, and attended insurance supervision training run by BaFin. Before the FSS he underwrote contract, defect and advance-payment guarantees at the Korea Specialty Contractors Financial Cooperative.
Korea University, BA in International Studies
Senior Examiner, Financial Supervisory Service · Korea Specialty Contractors Financial Cooperative
Korean, English
Tell us who owes you what. We will tell you if it is collectable.
Send the debtor's details and the amount. You will hear back within one business day, Seoul time, with what the registry shows, what we would do first, and what it would cost. No charge for the assessment.