Sunkyung Erica Shin and Sang-Yeon Eom of Shin & Kim advised the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) on the process of its first issuance of US$500-million green bonds to investors around the world on February 27, 2013. This was a SEC-registered offering, and the bonds were listed on the Singapore Exchange.
 
Green bonds are special-purpose bonds for “green” projects such as climate change mitigation and new renewable energy projects, and the net proceeds from the green bond issue must be used to promote low-carbon environmentally friendly projects. A “green certification” by an international environment certification body is required for the issuance of green bonds, KEXIM obtained the green certification from Norway’s Center for International Climate and Energy Research Oslo (CICERO) on January 18, 2013. Green bonds, since the first issuance of green bonds by the World Bank in 2008, had been issued exclusively by several major public international organizations (e.g. US$4.3 billion green bonds by the World Bank Group, US$1.85 billion green bonds by the European Investment Bank, US$ 900 million green bonds by the Asian Development Bank, and US$430 million green bonds by the African Development Bank).
 
KEXIM thus became the world’s first private policy finance institution and export credit agency to issue global green bonds, and such achievement has been recognized as a landmark global bond issuance by Korean issuer in the international financial market.

Shin & Kim, by successfully providing comprehensive legal advice to KEXIM relating to the overall process of its global green bond issuance, became the world’s first law firm to advise on the issuance of global green bonds by a private policy finance institution.