Expertise Category: International Practice

Overview

Secretariat Economists’ Asia practice includes both matters in the U.S. on behalf of Asian clients and matters in Asia. Such practice includes mergers and acquisitions, cartel investigations, abuse of dominance allegations, and the licensing of intellectual property. Secretariat Economists’ practice in Asia focuses primarily on work before antitrust enforcement agencies and courts in countries such as China and South Korea, and is led by highly experienced economists who speak the local language and understand the local market.

Overview

Growing international trade has stimulated competition among nations’ industries and created new challenges and opportunities for U.S. and other businesses. Corporations with international sales face not only new competition, but also an array of constraints, such as antidumping laws, market share arrangements, and export controls. Each constraint can alter dramatically the competitive environment. Changes in the laws governing international trade have also resulted in a number of new opportunities. For example, U.S. trade law now permits domestic firms to challenge overseas market barriers before U.S. authorities.

The increasing complexity of trade disputes has fostered expanded interest in sophisticated economic reasoning. Secretariat Economists can meet client requirements for research, strategic guidance, and expert testimony, as well as speech drafting and support for legislative initiatives. Evaluation of a trade problem or the conduct of a major trade case may be required. Whether the clients are domestic or foreign, detailed knowledge of policy, law, institutions, and industries is essential. Effective economic analysis must be competent, creative, and intelligible to non-economists.

Experience

Secretariat Economists professionals has participated in the full range of trade matters, including antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, escape clause investigations, and economic policy analysis. Secretariat Economists professionals have extensive experience inside the relevant government agencies. They have prepared studies and testimony for the International Trade Commission (ITC), U.S. Trade Representative, and other agencies. Economists at Secretariat Economists have served on inter-agency committees that considered a variety of trade policy questions. Secretariat Economists professionals have also worked on responses to petitions to restrict imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and have provided public benefit analysis and testimony for foreign trade zone applicants and operators.

Secretariat Economists professionals have published articles on trade issues, including the protection of intellectual property rights, the relationship between U.S. competitiveness and the trade deficit, the effects of tax changes on trade, and the implications of trade law revisions. In addition, economists at Secretariat Economists have appeared before antitrust authorities for foreign and domestic clients interested in forming joint ventures or making acquisitions.

Antidumping, Countervailing Duty, and Escape Clause Cases

Secretariat Economists professionals have participated in numerous import injury investigations before the ITC, including investigations in sweaters, cement, coated paper, welded carbon steel pipe and tube, and oil country tubular goods. As a result, Secretariat Economists professionals are familiar with the standards used by the ITC in its investigations, and can use this knowledge to assess the strength of a client’s case and to properly focus the analysis. In this context, Secretariat Economists professionals have analyzed the issues of “like products,” substitutability of foreign and domestic product, geographic market, and injury. In recent years, the ITC has increased its use of econometrics and other economic tools. Secretariat Economists professionals has developed the ability to employ and critique the analytical approaches used by the Commission staff, such as the COMPAS model.

Secretariat Economists has experience before the Commerce Department in analyzing the magnitude of dumping margins and countervailable subsidies. Secretariat Economists professionals have examined the Department of Commerce subsidy methodology and prepared computer records for antidumping investigations.

Overview

There is a growing consensus among policy-makers around the world that economic growth and technology innovation require legal institutions compatible with economic incentives. The framework for the law must lead to predictable behavior by the courts while avoiding inadvertent deterrence of lawful behavior and unnecessary expenditures on transactional services.

A policy issue that has received considerable attention is the deregulation of recently privatized industries, in particular those once considered natural monopolies. Policy-makers must determine which sectors of an industry have competitive characteristics and how to loosen regulation for these sectors while still maintaining appropriate oversight for those sectors that exhibit natural monopoly characteristics.

EI’s Competition Policy and Legal Reform Experience and Services

Secretariat Economists professionals have advised governments and industry participants and have worked with them and international agencies to address these issues for many industries, such as electric power generation and transmission, telecommunications, oil and gas production, pipelines, post offices, railroads, and airlines.

The establishment and enforcement of competition laws is also an important part of a developing country’s transition to a market-based economy. Secretariat Economists professionals have worked with countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union on establishing, writing, and enforcing competition laws. The economists at Secretariat Economists have also advised foreign governments on their antidumping laws. Secretariat Economists professionals can further assist policy-makers by providing a perspective on the strategic environment, public policies, technological changes, and market developments affecting specific industries.

Secretariat Economists professionals  also work for multilateral organizations, like the World Bank, in the evaluation of legal and judicial reform (LJR) programs. For example, working together with the International Women Judges Foundation, The economists at Secretariat Economists developed and implemented a methodology for evaluating a World Bank-funded program that provides legal advice to poor women in Ecuador. Although strengthening the rule of law has been identified as a key strategy for poverty reduction, measuring the impact of a specific LJR program face considerable challenges. Indeed, the major impact of effective legal reform is not seen in the cases that are brought before the courts, but instead arises from the changes in behavior induced by the knowledge of what courts will do. In addition, these benefits may take a long time to fully materialize, requiring innovative approaches to program evaluation.

Secretariat Economists professionals also can provide corporate planners with an overview of a country’s regulatory and competition policies that may affect their corporations’ foreign operations, provide recommendations for corporate strategy in a particular competitive environment, and provide evaluations of potential acquisitions and/or strategic alliances.