Best Lawyers Near You in Washington, District of Columbia for International Trade and Finance Law
Practice Area Overview
International Trade and Finance includes a range of legal specialties reflecting new global rules for international trade, conventions establishing new standards for companies operating abroad, aggressive national regulation of international business, and disputes among and across nations and cultures. Accordingly, multinational clients now turn to law firms for advice in multiple legal specialties. The most prominent include the following:
International Commercial and Finance Law. Various laws and international agreements govern corporate organization, contractual terms, financing, and the protection of investments in transactions between private parties across international borders.
Trade Remedy Laws. Anti-dumping, countervailing duty, and “safeguards” laws are designed to protect domestic industries from injury by unfair trade practices by foreign producers and surges in imports.
Anti-Corruption Law. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribery of foreign government officials, has spawned a succession of international conventions and similar laws in some 140 countries. Worrisome for multinationals, anti-corruption law has produced dramatic spikes in enforcement and penalties in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars against both companies and individuals.
Export Controls and Sanctions. Enforced by a variety of federal agencies, export controls have evolved into a broad, complex network of restrictions on the outbound trade of goods, services, funds, and technology. Exports are restricted for reasons ranging from national security to human rights and may apply depending on the good, service, end-use, foreign person or entity, or country at issue.
Trade Policy. This category generally subsumes any frictions between countries in international trade and investment not directly covered by other laws. Access to foreign markets, violations of WTO rules, barriers to trade, and special trade preferences are addressed by the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office or on Capitol Hill, with dashes of both policy and politics, as well as law.
Free Trade and Customs. Customs duties and tariffs remain central to planning international commercial transactions, as do exceptions or preferences under free trade agreements or other programs. Just as important are the many laws that restrict access to the United States of products that threaten health or welfare. Customs planning, responding to government audits, and assessing the occasional interrelation with other legal issues (such as taxation) characterize this practice.
Intellectual Property Protection. Owners of U.S. intellectual property rights who believe that imports are infringing those rights may ask Customs to bar entry of counterfeit products or litigate their claims before the U.S. International Trade Commission and, if successful, obtain an “exclusion order” barring the importation of all infringing products.
Dispute Settlement. The resolution of international disputes in national courts and before international arbitral tribunals has spread to a broader variety of bi-lateral or multi-lateral tribunals created by international trade and investment agreements.
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Mary Jane Alves is a partner in Cassidy Levy Kent’s Washington, DC office. Her practice focuses on antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard enforcement and compliance. Her experience in unfair trade cases spans a range of industries, such as agriculture, chemicals, electronics, pharmaceutical, energy, textiles, carbon and stainless steel, other metals and minerals, and manufactured goods. Before returning to private practice, Ms. Alves worked for 17 years at the U.S. Internationa...
Yohai Baisburd counsels companies, trade associations and governments in a variety of international trade matters in the United States and globally. Mr. Baisburd’s practice focuses on trade remedy (antidumping, subsidies, safeguards) litigation and import/export compliance and enforcement proceedings. He is recognized by Chambers and Partners for his Customs Law expertise and in The Best Lawyers in America for International Trade and Finance Law. Mr. Baisburd is on the roster of potenti...
Thomas Beline is a partner in Cassidy Levy Kent’s Washington DC office. Mr. Beline’s practice focuses on advising clients on all areas of import regulatory compliance and policy, trade remedies, and international trade litigation. Mr. Beline regularly appears as lead counsel before the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and North American Free Trade Agreemen...
Paul Brinkman is an intellectual property partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Paul focuses his practice on Section 337 litigation before the U.S. International Trade Commission. He has won 17 of 19 trials at the ITC and won or favorably settled many more prior to trial. Chambers described him as “great on his feet in court” with a “calm, practical and reasonable demeanor which works well with ITC judges.” His work for plaintiffs has led...
Jim Cannon focuses his practice on diverse international trade matters including antidumping and countervailing duty cases, market access proceedings, export controls and various customs matters. Mr. Cannon assists clients to address import competition, in open foreign markets for their exports or obtain tariff concessions. He regularly appears before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the Court of International Trade, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Department of...
Mr. Cassidy focuses on legal issues raised by cross-border business transactions, including antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings, economic sanctions, export controls and customs issues. He is experienced in devising strategies for using trade law procedures, such as the antidumping laws, to achieve business objectives and in resolving disputes between companies and the US government arising from sanctions, export controls and customs laws. Mr. Cassidy served as General Counsel of t...
Eugene Degnan is Of Counsel in the firm’s International Trade practice. Mr. Degnan routinely counsels clients on all aspects of international trade law with a particular focus on anti-dumping duty and countervailing duty law, global trade policy, global trade litigation, export controls and sanctions, and customs. Mr. Degnan has considerable expertise in a variety of industries, including steel, heavy and lightweight manufacturing equipment, agriculture, specialized consumer products, a...
Daniel J. Gerkin is an international trade and national security partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Dan advises on issues involving the transnational flow of goods, software, technology and services, as well as investments in the United States and abroad. Specifically, Dan counsels a variety of U.S., international and multinational companies, hedge funds, private equity funds, venture funds, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, financial institutions, and i...
Myles Getlan’s practice focuses on international trade and investment disputes and import/export compliance and enforcement matters. Mr. Getlan has significant experience litigating antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguard disputes before US and foreign administrative agencies, US courts, and dispute settlement panels convened under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other trade agreements. In both trade regulation and litigation, Mr. Getlan has represented foreign government...
Mary S. Hodgins is a Partner in the firm’s International Trade practice. She has represented domestic and foreign corporations, state-owned enterprises and foreign governments in unfair trade disputes with the United States before the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Ms. Hodgins has also advised U.S. importers with regard to a variety of issues relating to U....
Michael House, a partner in the firm’s Business group, focuses his practice in international trade law. Michael advises and represents clients in all aspects of trade remedy investigations under U.S. antidumping, countervailing duty and safeguard laws, as well as on export licensing and export control matters. He also advises clients in bilateral and multilateral disputes before the World Trade Organization. Michael counsels clients on Customs issues involving import transactions includ...
David J. Levine has more than 35 years of experience practicing international trade law. He counsels clients on import relief, customs, export controls, trade sanctions, anti-boycott, national security reviews of foreign investments and related trade laws and procedures. David advises and represents clients in antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings, trade controls and customs proceedings, national security (CFIUS) reviews of foreign investment in the US, trade compliance diligence in...
Charles Levy focuses on legal and policy issues covering a broad range of international trade, investment, finance, economic sanctions, and export control matters. Mr. Levy is experienced in devising and implementing strategies for using trade laws, international litigation, and international negotiations to achieve business objectives, and in resolving disputes between companies and governments. In the area of international negotiations, he has worked on every major U.S. bilateral, regional ...
Julie C. Mendoza is a Partner in the firm's International Trade practice. She has over two decades of experience skillfully defending a broad range of clients in major cases under U.S. import relief law and in U.S. customs matters. She practices before the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, and other U.S. government agencies. Ms. Mendoza has worked on Sect...
Brady Mills is a Partner in the firm’s International Trade practice. He has extensive experience in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, and appears regularly before the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. International Trade Commission. Mr. Mills also has significant experience in antidumping and countervailing duty litigation before the U.S. Court of International Trade and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Mr. Mills has represented clients in the steel, p...
Will Planert is a Partner in the firm’s International Trade practice. He concentrates on representing multilateral and foreign-based corporations in a wide variety of international trade disputes, including antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, Section 201 (safeguards) cases, anticircumvention investigations, and customs compliance matters. Mr. Planert appears regularly before the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the U.S. Bureau of ...
Clients turn to Jason Waite for pragmatic counsel on executing international trade and investment transactions efficiently and in compliance with complex laws and regulations, as well as for creative advocacy in Washington to achieve strategic business goals, the development and benchmarking of compliance programs, and when necessary, zealous representation in the defense of enforcement matters. Jason concentrates his practice on the regulatory aspects of international trade and investment. H...
Ken Weigel, a partner in the firm’s International Trade & Regulatory Group, has over 30 years of experience in advising companies on all aspects of international trade regulatory issues. His substantive areas of practice encompass export controls and sanctions, customs, trade remedy proceedings (e.g., antidumping), trade policy and related areas. In these areas, he represents companies before the agencies and the courts in audits, civil and criminal investigations and disclosures; h...
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