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Crowell & Moring LLP is pleased to announce that Mariana Pendás, in the firm’s International Trade Group, has been recognized by Latinvex as one of Latin America’s “Rising Legal Stars.” The list honors 50 lawyers from 38 international law firms doing business in Latin America. Selections were made based on scope and prominence of work and future potential.

Pendás, a dual-qualified lawyer in Spain and New York, and admitted to practice in Brussels under the E-list, focuses her practice on compliance with U.S. and EU economic sanctions, anti-money laundering laws and regulations, export controls, anti-corruption/anti-bribery laws and regulations, international arbitration, and dispute resolution. Latinvex highlighted her experience assisting U.S. clients on U.S. sanctions relating to different programs such as U.S. Venezuela-related sanctions and counter narcotics trafficking sanctions.

About Crowell & Moring’s Latin American Practice

Crowell & Moring represents clients in Latin America and the Caribbean on issues including international arbitration, corporate, finance, international trade, and policy issues. The firm regularly advises clients on issues under international and regional trade conventions, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America-Dominican Republic-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), as well as bilateral free trade agreements between the United States and Colombia, Panama, and other countries. The firm also advises on anti-money laundering and sanctions issues across Latin America.

Latinvex publishes daily news and weekly analysis on Latin America business; its coverage extends to the region’s legal sector, including rankings of law firms and individual lawyers. (No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the Bars of, or any courts in, the jurisdictions in which the lawyers are admitted to practice).

 

Washington – Crowell & Moring International (CMI) LLC is pleased to announce that Himamauli “Him” Das, former Senior Director for International Trade and Investment at the National Security Council and National Economic Council, as well as the former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade and Investment at the Treasury Department, has affiliated with the firm as Senior Advisor. With nearly two decades of experience across the White House, the State Department, and the Treasury Department, he will serve as a consultant on trade, investment, and market access issues.

“Him brings substantial government and international experience across the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations working with the international institutions where CMI operates,” said Robert Holleyman, CMI’s president and CEO.

Das was responsible for coordinating White House policy on trade negotiations – including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – and trade enforcement.  He was also responsible for trade and investment matters in international fora, including the G7, the G20, OECD, the UN, APEC, and ASEAN. At the Treasury Department, Das led negotiations related to financial services and exchange rate matters, developed rules governing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), and played a leadership role on international financial regulatory standards and on bilateral investment treaties.

“Him has been involved with CFIUS matters at all levels of government since 2006, reviewing hundreds of transactions in that time. He understands the rapidly evolving investment and national security landscape,” Holleyman said. “With passage of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) and new investment standards being considered globally, Him’s counsel will be particularly timely.”

Das said, “I am excited to work together with CMI to support and expand its longstanding capabilities in the areas of trade, investment and multilateral institutions. I am also enthusiastic about advancing the digital transformation initiative at CMI having long been engaged in international efforts focused on cross-border data transfers, fintech, regtech and emerging payment models.

In addition to consulting for CMI, Das serves as Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President of the Financial Integrity Network (FIN), a Washington-based advisory firm that provides services to governments, financial services firms, and other organizations to strengthen global financial integrity.

Das earned his J.D., Order of the Coif, M.P.P., and B.A., high distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley, and his M.Sc. from the University of Colorado

Join Us For A Complimentary Webinar – Thursday, October 25, 2018 – 12:00 – 1:00 PM ET

Two years into the Trump Administration and:

  • The Consumer Product Safety Commission now has a Republican majority,
  • the Department of Transportation has released its 3.0 guidance on autonomous vehicles,
  • NIST has published a 375-page recommendation on medical device security,
  • the FTC is holding a series of hearings on the transformative nature of the digital transformation on markets.

What does all this activity in the United States mean for companies following the rapidly evolving regulations globally related to the safety and security of products?

This webinar will describe the current landscape at the federal agencies setting policy for product safety and security. With all the recent talk of regulatory humility in the face of great technological change, we’ll discuss whether regulators practice what they preach and if recent actions encourage or stifle innovation. Our session will compare and contrast activities across the federal government relevant to consumer products broadly defined with a particular focus on product safety and security.

Presenters:

Cheryl Falvey, Partner, Crowell & Moring, Washington, DC
John Fuson, Partner, Crowell & Moring, Washington, DC
Peter Miller, Senior Counsel, Crowell & Moring, Washington, DC

 

Please click here to register for this webinar.

 

On July 16, 2018, the Court of Federal Claims released a far-reaching decision in Acetris Health, LLC v. United States, concluding that a drug could qualify as a “U.S.-made end product” under the Trade Agreements clause, FAR 52.225-5, despite a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ruling under the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), that the drug had not been “substantially transformed” in the United States, the usual test for whether a product from a designated country is eligible for sale to the United States under the TAA. The court concluded that a drug which met the definition of a “domestic end product” would also qualify as a “U.S.-made end product” and enjoined the Department of Veterans Affairs from relying on the CPB ruling in declaring the product ineligible. In doing so, the court has given effect to often overlooked language in the FAR 25.003 definition of “U.S.-made end product” that allows either an item manufactured in the United States or an item substantially transformed in the United States to be eligible for sale to the federal government. The decision opens the door for manufactured COTS items to be eligible under the TAA as long as final assembly occurs in the United States, without regard to the source of a COTS product’s components. It might even have broader implications because the FAR has never included an express definition of “manufacture,” and the definition of “U.S. made end product” does not expressly reference the definition of “domestic end product,” under which, in the Buy American context, “manufacture” is just one of two elements for determining eligibility.

On June 20, 2018, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced in the Federal Register that, beginning on July 6, 2018, an additional 25% duty will be imposed on products from China set out in Annex A of the notice. The USTR also released details on the public hearing and comments schedule regarding additional proposed tariffs on the list of products set out in Annex C of the notice.

Yesterday’s notice confirmed the USTR’s proposed Section 301 actions on two lists of tariff lines released through a press conference on June 15. The first list included 818 tariff lines valued at $34 billion worth of imports from China. The second list includes 284 tariff lines and is valued at $16 billion worth of imports from China. For details, please click here.

The USTR will convene a public hearing regarding the second list of tariff lines on July 24, 2018. Interested parties are required to file a request to appear at the hearing and a summary of expected testimony by June 28, 2018.

Written comments pertinent to the second list of tariff lines are due by July 23, 2018. Rebuttals to those comments are due by July 31, 2018.

The USTR determined it would establish a process by which U.S. stakeholders could request that particular products classified within a covered tariff subheading in Annex A be excluded from these additional duties. However, details on the exclusion process have not yet been released. The notice indicates that USTR will publish a separate notice describing the product exclusion process, including the procedures for submitting exclusion requests, and an opportunity for interested persons to submit oppositions to a request.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 11th biennial ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina failed to deliver any concrete results. As EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström bluntly stated, “[W]e failed to achieve all our objectives, and did not achieve any multilateral outcome.”

The main areas of contention were agriculture and fisheries, involving the failure to agree on modalities to protect developing countries’ ability to ensure their populations’ food security through public purchase and stockpiling of foodstuffs and the failure to agree to ban subsidies for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, respectively.

Please click here for more information on the conference.