Biography Karen Kao

Karen Kao (1959) studied English at the University of California and law at Georgetown University Law Centre (both in the USA). After her graduation in 1984, she worked for four years as an attorney in the USA in the area of corporate law, focusing on mergers, acquisitions, financing and transactions in the telecom sector.
She worked as a legal counsel in the corporate law practice of a law firm for several years, while studying Netherlands Law at Leiden University, from which she graduated in 1998. Karen Kao is specialized and very experienced in corporate law, particularly (international) mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Her focus is on M&A activity in the high tech field, including telecom, life sciences and new technologies.
In 1998, she successfully completed the Grotius Academy compact course in Competition Law. Karen Kao was sworn in as an attorney in the District of Columbia, United States in 1984, and has been a member of the Netherlands Bar Association in Amsterdam since 1999. She became a partner of Kennedy Van der Laan in 2002.

Practice areas
• Domestic and international mergers and take-overs
• Outsourcing
• Joint ventures
• Corporate advice for national and international clients

Recommended in Legal 500, PLC Cross-border Mergers & Acquisitions Handbook 2007/2008 and PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook 2009: "Karen Kao has experience with practice in the Netherlands and the US advising on M&A, financing and other corporate law aspects."

Education
• Competition, Anti-trust, Grotius, 1999
• Law, University of Leiden, 1998
• JD, Georgetown University Law Center, 1984
• BA, University of California, Irvine

Professional Associations
• IBA
• ABA
• Legal committee American Chamber of Commerce
• Sworn in District of Columbia, USA 1984