Practice Areas

Industrial Cooperation

Writing a check for the full value of an offset obligation is almost always a mistake. Companies often believe it is just too much trouble to understand, design, develop, and administer an offset project, let alone deliver one that is on time and on budget. While not without its challenges, associated projects are not difficult to execute but do require corporate commitment and an rarified enterprise-level awareness. Such recognition understands that industrial cooperation agreements are more than the sum of their organizational parts but rather an opportunity for cross-border ambassadorial pursuits that extend beyond corporate silos and matrixed management.

We have often found that combining a board-level and/or executive mandate with a burning platform approach (borrowed from the private equity industry) we can achieve results that prove as impressive as they are effective in discharging the total obligation while generating a cost-savings and minimizing internal resource commitments and associated frictions.

Sourcing a turn-key solution to your procurement department is not the most efficient or elegant means towards fulfilling your obligation, let alone maximizing your multiplier and successfully exiting the project under the projected transaction cost and on-schedule.

What is truly required is a team of multidisciplinary entrepreneurial innovators that not only understand the obligor’s requirements, your company, and the law as it pertains to international government contracting but most importantly have the network-reach to engage interested business parties who can effectively partner and deliver an optimized and acceptable solution.

Unleash potential, experience, expertise, and legal acumen to design the most robust solutions that meets the obligor’s requirements while simultaneously preparing a successful next-sale by developing a reputation for excellence in delivering visionary offset solutions that not only meet the requirements but establish new industry precedent.

Let us help you explore the full potential of your enterprise portfolio and discover new relationships and existing ones that can be repurposed to maximize your dedicated resources and corporate efforts in fulfilling your industrial cooperation obligations.

International Business

While the global economy is full of opportunity, business strategy must be guided by informed legal counsel that understands the inherent risks of dealing with both the federal law governing such transactions, as well as other business cultures and their respective laws. Making cross-border agreements that work means more than just papering a deal, it means intrinsically understanding the legal asymmetries and risks that arise from operating in the international business environment. We assist U.S. companies seeking to expand abroad and foreign companies seeking to expand their business in the U.S.

Our experience includes assisting U.S. businesses with the sale and distribution of products and services abroad, as well as the protection and licensing of their intellectual property in foreign markets. We also help businesses establish foreign subsidiaries, overseas facilities, and operations, including joint ventures with foreign partners.

Once committed to planning a sale of products or services in a foreign market, or a related distribution agreement, it is critical you secure your intellectual property via licensing agreements. Moreover, the importance of establishing the proper structure and appropriate transaction vehicle for your initiative cannot be overstated.

As such, we assist with ownership issues such as joint ventures, foreign subsidiaries and facilities, as well as overarching operational issues. Adept negotiation of these issues and others, on behalf of our clients, is where our global experience comes to the fore with the ability to expand the economic frontier of your current opportunity while maximizing enterprise profitability.

Lex Global is an active members of numerous formal and informal networking groups that span the globe. Such networks allow us to readily partner with interested parties, consultants, intermediaries, and other foreign law firms who can integrate the application of foreign law, foreign policy, and local business practices into your capture strategy.

Lex Global represents many foreign clients in U.S. legal matters. If you are affiliated with a foreign company or are an global entrepreneur, we can assist you in establishing or purchasing U.S. facilities as well as guide you through your initial country-launch in the U.S. Our counsel marries your strategy with the law so as to ensure all your business concerns are appropriately considered as you execute your growth plan.

International Compliance

We may live in a free country but doing business abroad is not a free-for-all. Each U.S. company and citizen engaged in exports becomes subject to export controls. The prospective penalties for non-compliance can be costly and severe.

Federal agencies under the Department of State, Department Commerce, Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense all have a say in your ability to transact business abroad. Whether you are planning the export of goods and/or services, just how those articles are defined, deemed, and classified are all closely regulated.

As such, we help you navigate the letter of the law and more importantly the intent of the underlying policy to ensure you have done your due diligence in maximizing your potential for achieving a favorable regulatory disposition from the U.S. government. Export control regimes such as ITAR and to a lesser extent EAR have many interlocking policy objectives and such objectives are reflected in the various regulatory provisions governing the sale of commercial and defense articles abroad.

For example, there are anti-corruption (FCPA) concerns, money-laundering and money-origination concerns (OFAC), there is the internal review (DOD) conducted even before the DDTC renders a final opinion on the matter, and of course there is the Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS) who can review the totality of the transaction in light of current U.S. foreign policy and federal law.

Such regulatory complexity requires astute analysis of the proposed transaction, as well as the nature and tenor of the proposed business relationship. Lex Global can assist you in the proper evaluation and determination of your business strategy and its alignment with both your prospective transactions and your growth objectives.

Consider this, if the business trend you followed brought you to this point of question, of what use was following the trend? Why not invest your time and resources with the foresight required to avoid making costly business decisions, focus your resources on international strategies and endeavors that can only positively affect your long-term outcome.

Government Contracts

Submitting a bid-protest or an administrative claim is a business decision but it is one of dozens of business decisions that must be made concerning every government contract.

Perhaps you need help winning more contracts, or you need help with subcontract management issues, or maybe your facing an integrity issue and some sort of ensuing investigation. We can help you with your contracting problems but more importantly we can help you prevent problems in the first place.

Government contracting is a rules-based regime where mere oversight can prove costly if not catastrophic to your business. We have helped many a contractor in both contingency and standard contracting environments thrive by establishing systems and processes to avoid the most common problem areas.

Even mature organizations can face economic and business pressures allowing the ‘tail to wag the dog’. Pursue your growth options in a considerate and ethical manner or risk tolerance could transform into enterprise crisis management. Our guidance and counsel are designed to prevent such significant events from occurring in the first place.

Organic growth in today’s contracting environment requires business sector specificity or the ability to harness corporate development initiatives to achieve industry market visibility and scale. M&A initiative experience and market savvy can accelerate your business growth goals in the global aerospace and defense marketplace. We can help you define and harness your industry position as well as capital market opportunities.