Trade and patent attorney James Jeffries has rejoined Kutak Rock as an attorney in the intellectual property and corporate practice group, the firm announced. Jeffries worked as chief legal officer at Kuat Innovations from 2021 to 2025 after initially working for Kutak Rock as an attorney and partner from 2018 to 2021. At Kutak, Jeffries will work on trademark and patent matters, along with customs and international trade issues, including tariff exposure mitigation and vendor relationship structuring.
The entire international trade practice of Curtis Mallet-Prevost has joined Pillsbury Winthrop, Pillsbury announced on March 17. Led by partners Daniel Porter, Matthew McCullough and James Durling, the 14-member trade team will greatly expand Pillsbury's international trade practice, the firm said. Porter was the head of Curtis' trade practice, initially joining the firm in 2012.
A federal court in the District of Columbia last week dismissed a suit against U.S. personal care product giant Kimberly-Clark Corp. and Ansell Healthcare Products, which alleged that the companies knowingly benefited from taking part in a venture that engaged in forced labor. Judge Carl Michols held that Kimberly-Clark and Ansell didn't take part in a venture and didn't have the "requisite knowledge" to establish liability under the Trafficking Victims Protection and Reauthorization Act (Mohammed Forhad Mia, et al. v. Kimberly-Clark, et al., D.D.C. # 1:22-02353).
Jane Dempsey, former attorney in the Office of the General Counsel at the International Trade Commission, has joined Polsinelli as counsel in the trade remedies practice, the firm said. At the ITC, Dempsey served as lead counsel in trade remedies litigation before the Court of International Trade and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
A State Department notice declaring that all agency efforts to control international trade now constitute a "foreign affairs function" of the U.S. under the Administrative Procedure Act will ultimately be subject to the discretion of the courts, trade lawyers told us.
Four Indonesian citizens filed suit on March 12 in a California federal court alleging that tuna seller Bumble Bee Foods violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act by knowingly benefiting from a venture that engaged in forced labor. The four individuals -- Akhmad, Angga and Muhammad Sahrudin and Muhammad Syafi'i -- said they worked as laborers on longline fishing vessels that Bumble Bee sourced its albacore tuna from and alleged that the company knowingly benefited from their forced labor (Akhmad Sahrudin v. Bumblee Bee Foods, S.D. Cal. # 3:25-00583).
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of Feb. 10-16, Feb. 17-23, Feb. 24 - March 2 and March 3-9:
Serina Baker-Hill, director of CBP's Automotive and Aerospace Center of Excellence and Expertise in Detroit, has been charged in an indictment unsealed on March 12 with defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency, making false statements to federal agents and committing wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced.
Alexandra Hess, a former official at CBP, has rejoined Cassidy Levy as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office, the firm announced on LinkedIn. At CBP, Hess served as branch chief for entry process and duty refunds in the Office of Regulations & Rulings, where she "issued rulings and advice" on "the entry process, duty drawback, de minimis, reconciliation, bonding, antidumping and countervailing duties, temporary importation under bond, foreign trade zones, right to make entry, broker compliance and management, and quota," the firm said.
The Trump administration plans to "aggressively" enforce the False Claims Act, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Granston said during the Federal Bar Association's qui tam conference last week, attorneys at McGuire Woods said. While most FCA enforcement action is taken in the field of healthcare, Granston said that DOJ will center future FCA enforcement on other Trump policy priorities, including customs fraud and "illegal foreign trade practices."