Seong Kim

Mr. Seong Kim is a senior associate in the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Department in the Los Angeles office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP. Mr. Kim advises retirement and health plan sponsors, employers, and service providers on all employee benefit plan matters. He serves as counsel for several large multiemployer pension and health and welfare funds with billions of dollars in assets in the entertainment, grocery, hotel, culinary, and longshoreman industries.

Mr. Kim also advises governmental plans and public agencies, and has served as counsel to numerous California county retirement systems, cities, counties, water districts, transit authorities, police and fire retirement systems, hospitals, and large publicly operated health plans.

Mr. Kim’s practice focuses on advising employers and plans on compliance with the federal and state laws that govern employee benefit plans, including, ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, the Affordable Care Act, COBRA, HIPAA, the Ralph M. Brown Act, the California Public Records Act, and the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013.

He has significant experience in the areas of plan design, withdrawal liability, fiduciary responsibility, benefit claims and appeals, prohibited transactions, and service provider disclosure requirements. Mr. Kim also regularly reviews and negotiates investment management, hedge fund, and private equity agreements and assists in the investment of plan assets and the negotiation of side letters.

Mr. Kim has extensive experience representing plan sponsors in controversies before the IRS, DOL, and PBGC. He has worked with plan sponsors to correct failures through the IRS Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System and DOL Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program, successfully defended plan sponsors in IRS and DOL audits, and drafted numerous favorable IRS determination letter applications for multiemployer, single employer, and public sector plans.

Education:

• J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law (2009)
  • Tax Law Concentration Certificate
  • Hastings Business Law Journal, Executive Productions Editor (2008-2009)/Editor (2007-2008)
• B.S., University of California, Berkeley (2006)
  • Haas School of Business
• B.A., University of California, Berkeley (2006)
  • Distinction in General Scholarship

Affiliations:

• State Bar of California (Admitted 2009)
• Asian American Bar Association (Member)