Global Services

Overview

Today’s business seeks a borderless world. Yet as much as globalization has reduced barriers to commerce, borders and their obstacles to business remain. Laws, regulations, and political risk today shape a global marketplace littered with barriers. At Alston & Bird, we solve these problems for business. Our Global Services Group is a multidisciplinary team of attorneys experienced in providing sound, practical legal advice to companies on their investments and operations globally. We advise our global clients on issues they face—ranging from corporate M&A to immigration, IP protection and clearance to products liability, international tax to international trade—providing real-world, practical solutions geared toward ensuring successful operations in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Asia-Pacific region, and Africa. The breadth of the Global Services Practice at Alston & Bird provides our clients with solutions tailored to their diverse global needs.

Our approach to international matters combines our own experience in strategic global capitals with a network of accomplished independent law firms in markets all over the world. Our offices in key centers of global commerce and regulation, from New York to Silicon Valley, from Washington to London, from Atlanta to Brussels, provide us with a substantive depth not found in most law firms. Our longstanding relationships with other independent law firms throughout the world allow us to guide clients wherever their business may take them. The attorneys and professionals in our Global Services Group provide subject-matter insights in international tax, intellectual property, privacy and data protection, e-commerce and financial systems regulation, international trade, export controls and sanctions, and public policy and government affairs. Our global network of local experts provides a multiplier effect for our clients in virtually any market in the world.

The International Global Services Group coordinates the firm’s memberships and participation in international organizations that nurture our network of relationships with legal practitioners throughout the world, including the International Bar Association (IBA). Our partners also play leadership roles in a number of international organizations, chairing many IBA committees.

Experience

• Counsel to a major Chinese state-owned company in connection with a complex products liability claim.
• Counsel to numerous Asian, European and Latin American investors in acquisitions ranging from technology companies, automobile companies, theme restaurants and art auction houses to biotech and medical device companies.
• Successful defense of Chinese and Taiwanese magnet manufacturers in a Section 337 proceeding before the U.S. International Trade Commission.
• Highly sophisticated transfer pricing advice for major Asian and European manufacturing companies, including the securing of bilateral and multilateral advance pricing agreements.
• Represented a foreign multinational client in connection with a proposed IRS transfer pricing assessment of $800–900 million, which resulted in a complete withdrawal by the IRS of its proposed assessment.
• Representation of a financial services entity in arbitration brought against a sovereign relating to closure by the sovereign of a financial institution in which the client had invested, resulting in a $120 million award in favor of our client.
• Representation of a major European technology company in a multibillion-dollar ICC arbitration over a patent license agreement.
• Representation of U.S. companies (with local counsel) in trade remedy proceedings in China, Egypt, Canada, Mexico and Brazil, and of foreign companies in the U.S.
• Advice on U.S., EU, Canadian and other country economic sanctions and export controls, and representation of clients alleged to have violated economic sanctions and export controls.
• Counsel to foreign clients in mergers and acquisitions in the United States subject to national security reviews under the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
• Advocate for multinational clients on regulatory and legislative matters before governments including the United States, European Union, China, Japan and throughout the Middle East.
• Act as U.S. legal counsel to Chinese private and State Owned Enterprises in conjunction with multiple private placements in China and public securities offerings on the Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Shenzhen stock exchanges.
• Representation of multiple U.S.-based financial technology and payments companies in strategic transactions throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and de novo new market entry.