Miller & Chevalier is ranked among the top international trade practices in the U.S. by Chambers USA. (“Strengths include trade policy and trade remedies…clients remain ‘deeply impressed by the dynamism of the group and the breadth of its knowledge.’  Reasonable rates also carried favour…”). Five members appear in the 2009 edition of Best Lawyers in America.  The firm’s International Trade Remedy Group has been successfully involved in hundreds of trade remedy – antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) – safeguard, and other import relief proceedings, both in the United States and overseas, for over thirty years.  Our case experience spans numerous sectors, from agriculture to information technology products, metals, aerospace, forest products, chemicals, textile and apparel products and many others.  We have successfully defended our clients’ interests at every stage of the trade remedy process, from handling agency proceedings to challenging and defending agency determinations in U.S. federal courts and international dispute settlement proceedings (WTO).

The firm’s trade remedy group brings a rigorous and multi-disciplinary approach to bear on trade remedy matters, becoming deeply immersed in the facts and serving as a trusted resource (on both factual and legal issues) to government decision-makers and their staff. Clients rely on us to perform a range of services, including advance planning as to pursuing or defending against trade remedy actions, both in the U.S. and overseas, and all-out mobilization of our substantial resources to obtain or defeat import relief in disputed cases. We also help to shape the political and policy environment in which close cases and difficult/novel issues are resolved. 

Our group is a large one (22 members). Its members have compiled extensive records of success both in government and as private sector advocates. The group includes former senior-level officials from the U.S. Government agencies involved in trade remedy proceedings – the Department of Commerce (DOC), the International Trade Commission (ITC), and the Customs Service – as well as former top Congressional trade staff and officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the former in-house International Trade Counsel to a major multinational that is a frequent petitioner and respondent in trade proceedings. The group also includes Ph.D.-level economic expertise. Our members include practitioners with years of experience in a good majority of the other major Washington DC trade law firms, adding further to the collective experience we can bring to bear.

Special Competencies

Beyond the basics of litigating U.S. agency-level trade remedy proceedings discussed above, the group has specialized and widely-renowned expertise with respect to:

• Appeals: We have substantial experience challenging and helping to defend U.S. agency determinations, both in U.S. federal courts and in the special “NAFTA Chapter 19” system where appeals involving Canadian and Mexican goods are litigated. We have been involved in over fifty U.S. Court of International Trade appeals and over a dozen appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the Chapter 19 context, we have appeared before many binational panels and have served as counsel in four ECC reviews.

• WTO Challenges: We counsel governments and private parties in WTO disputes. Our lawyers have helped both to challenge and defend trade remedy measures reviewed by the WTO, at the panel and Appellate Body level. This capability distinguishes our group from others active in trade remedy disputes only at the agency or court level, and positions us ideally for the broadest possible understanding and representation of a client's interests.  Our group includes former lead WTO litigators at the U.S. trade agencies.

• Policy Work and Economic Analysis Related to AD/CVD/Safeguard measures: Members of our group do significant policy/advocacy work on behalf of clients regarding the design and operation of the U.S. trade remedy regime, the continuing evolution of the U.S. statutory and international (WTO) rules governing that regime, and the public policy debates surrounding the use of trade remedy measures. This work includes regular participation in agency-level policy reviews, advocacy in Congress regarding trade remedy reform proposals, close collaboration with negotiators working on proposed reforms of the applicable WTO rules, and economic analysis of trade remedy measures. Team members include Ph.D. economists and adjunct economics and law professors. Team members were also involved in fashioning the last major reform of the international trade remedy rules, during the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, and drafting the trade remedy portions of the U.S. implementing legislation, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act. This policy capability, likewise, distinguishes our group from the large majority of its competitors.

Members of the group are frequently asked to, and do, make presentations to major industry trade associations both in the U.S. and overseas.  Members are also widely published in ABA publications, Legal Times, Stanford Journal of International Law, Forbes, MIT's World Policy Journal, Berkeley's Global Economic Journal, the New York Law Journal , and so on.