Hogan & Hartson’s international trade lawyers and advisors offer strong technical capabilities across a broad spectrum of trade law, a sophisticated understanding of legislative, regulatory, and policy making processes, and a real-world, in-depth understanding of the industries in which our clients do business. With the firm’s strategic positioning in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, our multijurisdictional practice includes policy, administrative proceedings, compliance and enforcement, and complex litigation throughout all of the major trading countries.

With years of government service and private practice, our lawyers and advisors have been active in every major international trade initiative over the last two decades, including negotiation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), bilateral free trade agreements, U.S. Japan trade relations, steel disputes, China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR), and WTO accession and economic sanctions reform.

We use this distinctive experience to analyze the impact laws and policies have on our clients’ activities and to formulate and execute strategies that meet their goals. We are well known for implementing legal solutions based on a sophisticated mix of political, diplomatic, and policy-based approaches.

Within this framework, our litigators contribute substantial experience gained during many of the world’s largest international trade disputes and in front of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the European Court of First Instance, as well as administrative bodies such as the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, the European Commission, and China’s Bureau of Fair Trade Investigations.

At the heart of every legal strategy we develop is the genuine belief that the provision of top-quality legal services must be done in a manner which furthers client business goals. We leverage our deep industry knowledge and our talented bench of lawyers to ensure that our clients receive outstanding legal services in a cost-effective manner. Our commitment to recruiting and retaining highly accomplished team members at every level translates into a direct benefit to our client base.

It is precisely this talented team which has won acclaim from peers, clients, and the press alike. For example, we are proud to be included among the top international trade firms in the most recent (2007) edition of Chambers USA, which noted “[our] towering presence on the international trade skyline” and our “uniformly strong … impressive cast” of attorneys. Our outstanding record in trade remedy cases, WTO prowess, and export controls, money-laundering, and CFIUS experience were all singled out as well. The current edition of the Legal500 notes the diversity of our practice and passes along client praise for our “solid and sophisticated understanding,” not just of legal matters, but of the “political overtones [of an issue]” as well. In the EU, the leadership of our team has been praised as “extremely dynamic and proactive” and “formidable” by Chambers Global and “practical and business orientated” with “a deep knowledge of trade law.”

Moreover, our professionals are located in the worldwide centers of trade law, including Washington, D.C., Brussels, Geneva, and Beijing. We are the only firm in our Chambers USA tier and only one of two general practice firms with trade groups to be able to make that claim. In fact, we have one of the highest concentrations of non-U.S. trade lawyers of any firms among our competitors, allowing us to provide practical and effective “on-the-ground” advice to our clients.

Former Leadership Positions

• Clayton Yeutter, former U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
• Rita Hayes, former Deputy and Acting U.S. Trade Representative to the World Trade Organization and Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization
• Hugo Paemen, former head of the European Commission’s Washington delegation and the European Commission’s former Deputy Director-general for External Relations
• Jeanne Archibald, former General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Treasury
• Paul Virtue, former General Counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service
• Robert Kyle, former Associate Director for International Economic Policy at the White House Office of Policy Development; former Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget; and former International Trade Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
• Jun Wei, former Deputy Division Director of the Legislative Affairs Commission in the Chinese National People’s Congress
• Roy Zou, former Legal Officer at the Department of Treaty and Law in the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Raymond Calamaro, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Policy Director to a U.S. Senator
• Terry Polino, former Senior Attorney in the U.S. Department of Treasury’s General Counsel’s office and former Attorney-advisor in the U.S. Customs Service’s Chief Counsel’s office