International

Jones Walker has handled international transactions on five continents, with a concentration in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Our attorneys provide clients with seamless and efficient service by working closely with correspondent and affiliate counsel in foreign countries. This network enables the firm to devise complex, multi-faceted solutions in a cross-border environment, while assuring consistent delivery of legal services worldwide.

Jones Walker has particular experience in the area of counseling financial services businesses, including insurers, banks, mutual funds, and producers. We have advised multinational insurance company clients on company formation; foreign regulatory issues with respect to variable life, annuity, and health insurance products; foreign laws governing authorization, licensing, marketing practices, agents, and brokers; bancassurance; and the drafting and interpretation of insurance policies. We have also advised foreign governments in connection with insurance and pension reform legislation. 

We have handled international construction projects, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, and international joint ventures, and have successfully closed project financings related to large international infrastructure projects, including major development projects, joint ventures, investments and/or asset acquisitions, service agreements, and engineering, procurement, and construction contracts throughout the world.

Through our relationship with an international metals and mining company and its subsidiaries, we have gained extensive experience representing U.S.-based companies operating in foreign countries. This unique partnering relationship involves the handling of virtually all of the client's international business matters, providing representation with respect to all major acquisitions, joint venture arrangements, privatization transactions, product sales agreements, drilling and earthworks projects, offshore and onshore engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance contracts, strategic alliance agreements relative to the outsourcing of facility operations, transportation agreements, and other operating agreements relative to international mining and smelting operations.

In the international tax area, we regularly structure overseas operations in connection with cross-border mergers and acquisitions to minimize foreign tax liabilities and overall worldwide tax rates, including the use of hybrid financing techniques and foreign entities. 

Jones Walker has significant experience in handling international maritime and commercial litigation and arbitration matters. We regularly represent clients in UNCITRAL and ICC arbitrations, and have overseen litigation filed with foreign tribunals. We represent both domestic and foreign clients before U.S. tribunals in international matters.

In connection with international corporate compliance matters, through its corporate compliance practice, Jones Walker regularly advises clients with respect to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Foreign Assets Control Regulations administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the USA Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act, U.S. anti-boycott legislation, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Jones Walker also advises international clients on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), U.S. bilateral investment treaties with foreign countries, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Our attorneys have lived and studied around the world and bring a unique cultural perspective to the practice. Moreover, they are conscious of the differences between civil and common law systems, and have written and spoken extensively on the subject. Members of this practice are fluent in Spanish, French, and German, and routinely handle complex matters using their foreign language skills.

Jones Walker’s membership in Lex Mundi, the world’s leading network of independent law firms, provides us with a global reach that extends far beyond our firm’s US footprint to more than 100 countries around the world.