Heller Ehrman provides a full array of legal services to clients that conduct business in the global marketplace. Our attorneys have been advising clients for more than 25 years on the business opportunities and challenges presented worldwide. Within the past five years, our lawyers have handled litigation, transactions, dispute resolution and compliance issues involving more than 50 countries. We represent U.S. companies conducting business abroad and foreign companies doing business in the United States, as well as clients involved in other cross-border transactions and disputes worldwide. Our clients cross a variety of industries, including real estate, life sciences, technology, energy and professional services.
We represent clients throughout the world, including Asia, Europe, Israel, Australia, Canada and Latin America, and we provide strategic advice to U.S. corporations looking to expand their businesses overseas. Our lawyers are experienced in international treaties and conventions, including those relating to criminal proceedings. We regularly advise on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act compliance for U.S. multinationals. We represent clients in foreign acquisitions, in establishing foreign-owned enterprises and joint ventures, licensing, structured finance and tax planning. We also work with emerging companies and the entities that fund them in a variety of financing transactions.
Facts About Our Practice
Our Capabilities
Antitrust and Competition
Our lawyers provide legal counseling and representation in European Commission and European Union Member State proceedings involving abuse of dominance, cartels, intellectual property licensing and mergers. Our practice is led by a former Member of the Irish Competition Authority and representative to the European Commission Advisory Committee of Member States, and also includes lawyers who serve as Non-Governmental Advisors to the International Competition Network (ICN). Lawyers in the International Competition practice have substantial experience in multi-jurisdictional mergers and acquisitions, cartel enforcement and dominant firm conduct cases.
Arbitration and Dispute Resolution
Our attorneys have extensive experience representing clients in international arbitration and alternative dispute resolution proceedings. We advise on issues of jurisdiction and choice of law in agreements, as well as on the selection of arbitration or litigation to provide the most favorable forum. We negotiate and draft ADR agreements and dispute resolution provisions for international and domestic commercial transactions and design dispute resolution systems for corporate use. We represent clients in mediations, adjudications and conciliations.
Corporate
In addition to providing general corporate advice and assisting clients in corporate finance and commercial transactions, our attorneys are experienced in complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions; capital markets and securities regulation, including Nasdaq and regional stock exchange offerings; foreign direct investment in China and Southeast Asia; private equity and venture capital fund formation; and structuring, financing and strategic investing in emerging technology companies.
FCPA and Other Government Regulations
We help clients to set up compliance programs and to run internal investigations in many countries including China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines – among the world's riskiest countries for purposes of FCPA compliance. We also advise numerous global clients in connection with investigations by local government authorities.
Intellectual Property
We offer a range of international intellectual property services that few firms can rival. We have practiced before the European Patent Office for European patent filings since its inception in 1978 and have extensive experience in defending and challenging European patents in opposition and appeal proceedings. We have assisted numerous clients in protecting their IP rights in China, and we have significant experience in managing local PRC counsel. We draw on our extensive litigation and technology skills to prosecute and defend complex patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark cases in a variety of industries. Our team includes lawyers with significant experience practicing before the International Trade Commission.
Real Estate
Our attorneys represent both U.S. entities in offshore real estate investment activities and foreign investors active in the U.S. real estate market. Our cross-border real estate work involves every variation on the structural theme, from direct asset acquisitions to ground leases, incentive-based strategic alliances, mortgage loans, mezzanine debt and hybrid debt-equity transactions.
Tax
Our international activities arise from two separate sources: we represent foreign-based clients with interests in the United States, and we represent the firm's corporate clients in handling the tax issues they face as they expand globally. Our foreign-based clients include foreign governments, foreign trading companies and individuals. We have traditionally represented clients in transactions ranging from highly complex cross-border acquisitions and reorganizations to the establishment of foreign entity structures to export sales and cross-border transactions. Our proficiency comes, in part, from the number of attorneys who practice or have practiced outside of the United States.
Transactional
We have significant experience in advising clients who conduct business in foreign markets. Our practice includes cross-border transactions relating to corporate securities, mergers and acquisitions, financing, investment partnerships and funds, private equity, IPOs and capital markets, project finance, secured lending, licensing and partnerships. Our attorneys understand and are experienced in coordinating transactions that engage the laws of the various countries involved in a single deal as well as the body of international treaties and conventions that often arise when conducting business globally.
WTO & International Trade
Our attorneys have extensive World Trade Organization and trade law experience, particularly in the areas of anti-dumping and other trade remedies, dispute settlement, trade negotiations, trade policy, regional groupings, customs and trade-related intellectual property issues. We help our clients understand and make use of the benefits conferred by WTO regulations, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) laws, bilateral investment protection treaties and other bilateral treaties such as CEPA (the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement between China and Hong Kong). Having acted in some of the largest trade disputes in the region, we are experienced in representing governments, exporters, importers, industry associations and Asian domestic producers in numerous anti-dumping investigations and other trade-related matters across a wide array of products and jurisdictions.
Heller Ehrman's International Competition practice provides legal counseling and representation in European Commission and European Union Member State proceedings involving abuse of dominance, cartels, intellectual property licencing and mergers. Our practice is a cornerstone of the firm's new London office, and is led by a former Member of the Irish Competition Authority and representative to the European Commission Advisory Committee of Member States. Lawyers in the International Competition practice have substantial experience in multi-jurisdictional mergers & acquisitions, cartel enforcement and dominent firm conduct cases.
This practice complements our firm's International Corporate and Asia practices and is fully-integrated with our Antitrust Regulatory practice in the United States. Together, we work with regulatory enforcement officials throughout the European Union to help our clients assess and mitigate risks encountered with business transactions in Europe.
As one of the few U.S. law firms with an American antitrust lawyer who recently served as a senior official in an EU enforcement agency, Heller Ehrman offers perspective and understanding of complex cross-border transactions and matters for our clients. Our distinctive background provides clients with hands-on experience and a coordinated approach in appearing before the European Commission as well as regulatory and enforcement agencies in the member states of the European Union, such as the United Kingdom.
Facts About Our Practice
Representative Engagements
Heller Ehrman has a long history of working with Israeli clients, and our attorneys have significant experience assisting them in business transactions, litigation, regulatory compliance and patent prosecution. We have a diverse group of attorneys located throughout our network of offices in the United States and abroad that understands the special needs of Israeli clients and can act as a bridge between Israeli companies and the U.S. market.
Our Israeli clients include established publicly traded companies, private emerging growth companies, venture funds and other investors. Our Israeli practice has focused mainly in the areas of life sciences, software, communications and Internet. We work closely with our clients to provide them with services that suit their special needs, and we have working relationships with leading law firms, accounting firms, venture funds and other professionals in Israel. In recent years we have represented Israeli clients in venture investments, public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, tax planning, licenses and other distribution agreements, FDA and other regulatory compliance, executive compensation, employment practices, intellectual property litigation, and patent and trademark prosecution.
Heller Ehrman has attorneys who are fluent in Hebrew and who maintain contacts with such major Israeli venture capital firms as Concord, Polaris, Giza, Tamir, and Fishman.
Representative Clients