Our international business practice serves the increasing needs of clients engaged in international business transactions, whether those needs are in connection with U.S.-based companies engaged in international transactions or with foreign investors' operations in the United States. The firm counsels manufacturing, trading and service corporations on overseas acquisitions, multinational joint ventures, international technology transfers, research and development arrangements and international marketing arrangements including international franchising, in both developed and developing countries. We also advise clients on regulatory compliance requirements in the export and import of goods and technology. We represent clients in import planning to reduce or eliminate duty exposure. We counsel and represent clients in enforcement matters at the U.S. Departments of Commerce, State, Treasury and Defense as well.

The firm's international lawyers have participated in the following transactions:

• Structured and negotiated a joint venture in Russia for the manufacture, sale and servicing of diesel engines in Russia
• Negotiated, as a part of the foregoing transaction, an export control regime on technology exports with various U.S. government agencies
• Crafted an agreement to have research and development performed in Russia by our client and have products of the research transmitted back to the United States. The transaction included the import of Russian-origin environmental pollution abatement technology
• Advised clients on military conversion of a portion of a Russian military complex for a manufactured housing project as part of a joint venture between a U.S. firm and Russian entrepreneurs
• Assisted one of our U.S. manufacturing clients in its joint venture with two Japanese corporations. The transaction involved licensing of a U.S. technology in Japan, developing a sales representation arrangement and drafting an agreement under which the Japanese companies hold equity in the U.S. firm
• Structured an Indian joint venture and technology transfer transaction for a client.

Our attorneys assist foreign investors located in the United States in planning their business activities in compliance with the laws of the United States. The firm also assists clients in negotiating international business transactions. The International Practice Group is headed by a partner who served 19 years as corporate counsel for Cummins' Engine Company, Inc., in Columbus, Indiana, and who was previously a Barrister-at-Law in Nairobi, Kenya. He has extensive hands-on experience in international business transactions.