International

Technological advances have made the world as accessible as your backyard, but not always as comfortable. As your business expands to meet growing global demand, you may need some help negotiating and doing business in different cultural and legal environments.  Additionally, while the opportunities across boarders are ever expanding, so are the risks, especially if a dispute arises.  Our international team is both well connected and experienced enabling GH&R to give top quality legal and business advice to U.S. companies operating overseas and to foreign-based companies operating in the U.S.

Our International Team offers exceptional cross-disciplinary depth. Rather than just offer a lawyer or two with “jack-of-all-trades” international experience, our lawyers have international experience in diverse fields, including international mergers and acquisitions, international arbitrations and mediations, cross-boarder litigation, enforcement of foreign judgments (in-bound and out-bound), recovery of stolen assets overseas, sales and commercial transactions (including the U.N. Convention on Contracts for International Sales of Goods), lending and security arrangements, real estate, distribution and representation agreements, intellectual property protection, employment agreements and immigration.

The firm is a member of the International Business Law Consortium (IBLC), which is based in Salzburg, Austria.  The IBLC membership provides us with the opportunity to interact with a group of more than 85 independent law firms in 50 countries and to make contacts that allow us to find local counsel around the world.  Consortium firms are located in Amersterdam, Athens, Bangkok, Berlin, Bogotá, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Lima, London, Madrid, New Delhi, Oslo, Paris, Prague, Rome, Sao Paulo, Santiago, Seoul, Sydney, Vienna, Wellington, Zurich and other major cities of the world.

The firm’s lawyers are active in the Consortium and attend regularly its partners’ meetings that are held semi-annually.  Membership and participating in the Consortium’s programs give the firm the facility to refer matters as needed to well-qualified overseas lawyers with confidence to solve the client’s needs for foreign counsel.

Rely on our international experience to assist you in reaching global objectives.

  • Arranging joint ventures with foreign partners
  • Avoiding trade restrictions, navigating tariffs
  • Coordinating employment operations internationally
  • Drafting cross-boarder business agreements
  • Facilitating import/export issues
  • Guiding business immigration
  • Negotiating overseas acquisitions
  • Qualifying to do business in foreign countries
  • Resolving cross border business disputes through international litigation, arbitration and mediation
  • Signing-up foreign agents and distributors
  • Troubleshooting and legal compliance in foreign operations

Clients tell us that it’s more productive—and more enjoyable—to do business on a global scale when they rely on the experience of the GH&R International team. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound, dollar, euro and yen of cure.

Acquisitions and Transactions

  • Licensed technology for clients abroad.
  • Negotiated and formed joint ventures for clients in Latin America and Europe.
  • Represented utility holding company in overseas joint ventures.
  • Structured acquisitions and transactions in overseas-regulated industries that limit U.S. participation, including Mexico and Australia.

International Agreements

  • Advised, in cooperation with foreign counsel, on how European Union, Japanese, Mexican and other foreign laws affect U.S. businesses’ overseas operations.
  • Drafted and negotiated agencies, distributorships and joint ventures with clients in Africa, Asia and Europe.
  • Set up foreign sales offices and other foreign operations for U.S. clients in various countries, including England, France, Mexico and Spain.
  • Streamlined and integrated with U.S. headquarters U.S.-based clients’ foreign operations, including facilities in China, Germany, and Mexico.

International Association Involvement

  • International Law Committees/Sections of the Cincinnati and American Bar Associations
  • International Bar Association
  • London Court of International Arbitration
  • International Visitor’s Council of Greater Cincinnati
  • French-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati
  • Alliance Franciase de Cincinnati
  • Northern Kentucky International Trade Association
  • World Affairs Council of Greater Cincinnati

International Dispute Resolution – Litigation, Arbitration and Mediation

  • Represented U.S. parties in domestic litigation against overseas parties.
  • Represented foreign parties in U.S. litigation.
  • Represented, with local foreign lawyers, U.S. parties in overseas litigation in Argentina, Belgium, Cabo Verde, Canada, China, Cyprus, England, France, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey.
  • Represented U.S. and overseas parties in international arbitrations and mediations, including, most recently, an enforcement of technology license agreement against a Korean multi-national corporation and defending against a contraction claim on a project in Hong Kong.
  • Conducted discovery in U.S. litigations overseas under the Hague Evidence Conventions and under Letters Rogatory.
  • Enforced foreign judgments in U.S. courts.
  • Enforced U.S. judgments in overseas courts.

Personal International Issues

  • Advised clients based abroad (Brazil, England, Switzerland and other countries) on U.S. law.
  • Negotiated expatriate employment agreements for U.S. executives with overseas employers.
  • Represented individuals in personal international matters such as employment, divorce, and immigration, involving various countries, including Belgium, China, and the Dominican Republic.

To meet the expanding needs of our clients involved in international business, over the past 15 years the firm has undertaken to develop the unique capacity for local law firms to represent clients in international or cross-boarder business disputes.  This capacity has allowed us to represent successfully clients in numerous litigations against overseas parties in U.S. state and federal courts and, with the cooperation with foreign lawyers, in litigations in foreign courts as well.  More recently, we have also represented both U.S. and foreign clients in major dispute international arbitrations and mediations in the U.S. and abroad administered by the Court of International Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre in Hong Kong.  Additionally, we are currently representing a claimant in an international arbitration governed by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITAL) Arbitration Rules.

As is the case with all of its commercial dispute resolution services, our representation of clients involved in international business disputes is guided by our strong philosophy that in each case, no matter how large or how small, it is essential to develop a strategy early on to get the dispute resolved in a business driven, cost effective manner that is focused on the clients' needs.  GH&R lawyers have also been recognized as experts in the field of international commercial arbitration and mediation and have been invited to participate in advanced mediation workshops in Europe and as speakers at international litigation and arbitrations conferences in Salzburg, Austria, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, and at the 2005 American Bar Association Annual Meeting in Chicago.