Kate Kim Tuma
Partner
Kate Tuma focuses her practice on representing both domestic and foreign companies in cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, licensing, technology transfer, and other strategic transactions and investments. She primarily works with clients in the automotive, telecommunications, biomedical and food/agribusiness industries.
Kate also regularly represents and advises clients on general corporate, regulatory compliance, intellectual property and antitrust-related investigations and class actions. She most recently acted as the interim director of litigation and associate general counsel for a major financial services company.
- Represented a Japanese trading company in a US$1.6 billion acquisition of a US seafood company.
- Represented a Japanese steel company in an auction-driven acquisition of a Russian steel company’s US-based assets and operations valued at approximately US$2.2 billion.
- Represented a Japanese trading company in a US$1.7 billion acquisition of a US-based producer of fruits and vegetables and its worldwide packaged foods business.
- Represented a Japanese telecommunications company in a US$750 million tender offer for purchase of a US global information technology provider of cloud-enabled enterprise hosting and application management services.
- Represented a Japanese petroleum company in a US$1.05 billion joint venture involving the production and supply of surfactants and alpha olefins.
- Represented a Japanese manufacturer of water treatment systems in connection with a US$630 million construction of facilities at a South Texas nuclear power plant.
- Represented a major Japanese EPC firm in an international joint venture involving the construction of a US$4 billion steel mill in Brazil.
- Represented a Japanese pharmaceutical company in connection with the worldwide licensing and supply of its rotary tableting machines used in the mass manufacture of pharmaceutical products.
- Represented a Japanese confectionary manufacturer in a US$262 million acquisition of a Polish chocolate company.
- Represented a Japanese medical diagnostics company in a US$775 million sale of its related business and assets worldwide.
- Represented a major US electronics distributor in its US$500 million acquisition of a Japanese electronics components manufacturer.
- Represented a Japanese precision instrument manufacturer in an antitrust investigation in Japan, Korea and the US.
- Represented a (second chair) Korean food manufacturer in antitrust class action in the US federal court.
- Represented a US auto manufacturer in service agreements for nationwide recall programs and other related warranty programs.
- Represented a US auto manufacturer in connection with nationwide fleet vehicle contracts and program rules.
- Represented a US auto manufacturer in negotiating and structuring nationwide extended warranty program plans, involving insurance and reinsurance companies and other marketing and plan administrators.
- Represented US auto manufacturers in partnership agreements with digital marketing and sales service providers.
- Represented US auto manufacturers in various transactions involving online service agreements, data processing, digital hosting and data transfer agreements, as well as structuring and drafting data privacy policies.
- Represented US and Italian auto manufacturers in online marketing and digital retailing agreements.
- Represented a US auto manufacturer in connection with retail financing, merchant participation, fleet management service and other similar agreements.
- Represented an Italian auto manufacturer in a joint development agreement relating to hyper-powered electric vehicles.
- Represented a US auto manufacturer in supply agreements with major US logistics, delivery services and electronic commerce companies.
- Represented US and German auto manufacturers in connection with various buy-sell transactions, exercise of ROFR, dealer relocations, OEM buy-backs, and dealer entity corporate and tax reorganizations.
- Advised foreign manufacturers exploring opportunities to partner with an existing dealer franchise network or to establish its own dealer network.
- Represented US and German auto manufacturers in connection with negotiating and drafting various framework, performance, forbearance, hold harmless, site control, option agreements, guarantees, MOUs and LOIs.
- Represented US, German and Italian auto manufacturers in connection with advising and drafting policy and plan documents, including relating to incentives, rebates, new initiatives, facility and corporate identification standards, service policies, vehicle pricing, marketing and advertising practices.
Education
- University of Chicago, J.D., Ruth Wyatt Rosenson Scholar, 2003
- University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1997
Admissions
- Hawaii, 2017
- Illinois, 2003
- U.S. Dist. Ct., N. Dist. of Illinois
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Memberships and Affiliations
- Back on My Feet, advisory board member
- Pro Bono Network (Chicago), volunteer lawyer
Languages
- English
- Korean