John Brew is a partner in Crowell & Moring's International Trade Group and focuses his practice in the area of Customs. He has extensive experience in import and export trade regulation, and he regularly advises corporations, trade associations, foreign governments, and non-governmental organizations on matters involving customs administration, enforcement, compliance, litigation, legislation and policy.

Mr. Brew represents clients in proceedings at the administrative and judicial levels, as well as before Congress and the international bureaucracies that handle customs and trade matters. He advises clients on all substantive import regulatory issues handled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, such as classification, valuation, origin, marking, tariff preference programs, other agency regulations, admissibility, import restrictions, quotas, drawback, audits, penalties, investigations, Importer Self Assessment and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism programs, importations under bond, the Jones Act, vessel repairs and foreign trade zone matters.

Mr. Brew's practice also includes representation of clients in other international trade areas, such as export controls, sanctions, market access, World Trade Organization-related matters, bilateral, multilateral and regional trade agreements, foreign corrupt practices, anti-boycott, anti-dumping and countervailing duty actions, short supply proceedings, Section 201, Section 301, Section 337, and other import relief actions.

John was recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2010 in the area of International Trade and Finance Law.

Representative Experience:

• Assisting clients establish import compliance and cargo security programs and become C-TPAT and ISA members.
• Representing a home textile manufacturer in a favorable classification decision before Customs, the U.S. Court of International Trade and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and advising the company on multilateral and bilateral textile agreements.
• Counseling U.S. importers on Customs valuation issues, including audits, intracompany transfer pricing, three-tiered transactions, buying agency agreements and assists.
• Advising U.S. importers and exporters of automobile, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, plastic, textile, apparel and petroleum products during NAFTA verifications conducted by United States, Canadian and Mexican Customs officials.
• Assisting a U.S. computer manufacturer obtain export licenses for encryption technology, terminate an investigation on alleged OFAC embargo violations, and negotiating the inclusion of the company's products as part of the Information Technology Agreement providing duty-free treatment for imports and exports.
• Defending U.S. importers and manufacturers against Customs penalty, liquidated damages, detention, seizure and forfeiture actions.