Please join Wyche and the Association of Corporate Counsel on May 12th for a panel event examining a global perspective on navigating tariffs. Featuring insights from leading law firms in China, Mexico, Canada and the United States, the discussion will explore how companies can manage risks in an uncertain environment.
The event will take place from 4:00–6:00 PM at Roam (formerly ONE Conference Center) in downtown Greenville, followed by a networking reception. Additional details and the link to register can be found below.
This program has been submitted for 2 hours of CLE credit.
Monday, May 12th
Panel Event
4:00 – 6:00 PM
Networking Reception
6:00 PM
Harry M. Lightsey III was appointed by Governor Henry McMaster to serve as Secretary of Commerce in June 2021. Since his confirmation, Lightsey has led the agency’s globally competitive recruitment strategy for South Carolina’s evolving target industries. Notably, through partnerships with state and allied economic development leaders, South Carolina achieved historic recruitment in 2022, announcing $10.27 billion in capital investment.
During Lightsey’s tenure to-date, Commerce has secured some of the largest, most pivotal economic development deals on record. Key announcements include emerging battery materials closed-loop supply chain developer Redwood Materials’ $3.5 billion investment in Berkeley County; Scout Motors’ $2 billion investment in Richland County, reviving a classic American automotive brand as an electric vehicle; Albemarle Corporation’s $1.3 billion investment to create a lithium hydroxide processing facility in Chester County; and BMW Manufacturing’s $1.7 billion investment, expanding Plant Spartanburg production capabilities to accommodate electric vehicle production.
Lightsey leads the agency with an open and collaborative approach, working alongside the state’s executive and legislative leaders to align South Carolina’s economy for sustained, long-term growth. As part of this approach, the agency offers a breadth of complimentary services to enable all South Carolina businesses to remain nimble, innovative and successful. The agency also retooled its site selection program, LocateSC, to ensure economic development stakeholders can easily navigate the state’s available inventory and demographic data.
Elena is based in Toronto and a member of the international trade, customs and commodity tax group. She is a co-leader of the firm’s working group on the tariffs. She provides advisory, planning and dispute resolution services in all areas of sales and commodity tax, including GST/HST, provincial sales tax (PST), QST, land transfer tax, excise taxes, and carbon levies. Her practice also involves advising clients on the structuring of import/export arrangements, customs duties, valuation methodology and tariff classification.
Elena is dedicated to providing practical advice in varying sectors including real estate, e-commerce, natural resources, healthcare, manufacturing, technology, financial services, and non-profit organizations. Clients seek her expertise when establishing operations in Canada and to help navigate the complexities of indirect tax, minimize risks and reduce tax costs.
She also regularly represents clients in audits, objections and voluntary disclosures with the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canada Border Services Agency, and the provincial tax authorities, and in appeals to the Tax Court of Canada.
Ms. Jessica Cai’s area of expertise is in international trade. She has over ten years’ experience in trade remedy investigations, customs investigations, export controls and international trade compliance.
Ms. Cai is versed in legislation and the policies and practices of trade remedies, including anti-dumping investigations, countervailing duty investigations and safeguard investigations in China, the United States, the European Union and other countries. She has a deep understanding of the accounting policies, ERP systems, and supply chain of companies across a wide range of industries. With an in-depth knowledge of law and accounting, Ms. Cai has had exceptional success in defending clients in their investigations. She has also assisted her clients in developing their long-term case and business strategies, as well as shaping their business structures.
Ms. Cai’s practice also focuses on customs matters, including customs classification and country of origin. She is one of the few practitioners in China who can successfully assist Chinese companies in handling complex investigations by overseas customs authorities.
Ms. Cai has extensive experience in international trade compliance. She assists clients from various leading state-owned and private enterprises in China on legal risk analysis regarding export control and national security review, supply chain review, transaction screenings, and the establishment and improvement of compliance risk management. She has outstanding analytical skills as well as the ability to identify supply chain vulnerability, and can advise her clients on their business continuity and risk management.
Alberto has over twelve years of experience in various international trade disciplines, including antidumping, subsidies, safeguards, and market access. He also has a strong track record in providing legal advice on foreign trade matters, covering tariff and non-tariff restrictions related to the import and export of products.
He is currently a Senior Attorney at Basham in the Foreign Trade area in the Mexico City office. Previously, he collaborated for three years as a Counselor and Second Secretary of the Trade Office of the Ministry of Economy in Washington, D.C. Before that, he worked for eight years at the Mexican investigating authority on international trade remedies.
Alberto has extensive experience both domestically and internationally. Interna- tionally, he has provided legal advice in various antidumping, anti-subsidy, and safeguard proceedings in Mexico and the United States. He actively participated in negotiating the Trade Remedies chapter of the TMEC. Additionally, he has been involved in numerous international disputes, including NAFTA Chapter XIX Binational Panels, NAFTA Chapter 31 disputes, and disputes before the World Trade Organization.
At the national level, he has advised in antidumping proceedings, participated in multiple contentious and noncontentious proceedings in foreign trade matters, and provided consulting services to several companies in this area.
Clients rely on Henry to manage their most serious challenges. He has handled a broad spectrum of high stakes problems, lawsuits, and arbitrations for businesses and individuals for more than thirty years, often for returning clients.
Henry has represented plaintiffs and defendants in complex litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts, and also frequently sits as an arbitrator on a wide range of complex business and health care disputes. He has presented cases to juries and has also presented appeals to the South Carolina Court of Appeals, the South Carolina Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court. His cases have included class actions involving software, electrical outlets, insurance, securities, and arbitration, as well as individual lawsuits involving a wide range of complex civil litigation matters such as defective products, wrongful termination, commission disputes, conspiracy, patent infringement, slander, trade secrets, unfair trade practices, constitutional law, healthcare, insurance coverage, and contractual disputes.
In addition, Henry has represented clients before administrative law judges. He frequently serves as an arbitrator in matters involving claims up to and exceeding $60,000,000, including class actions. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is a member of a number of arbitration panels, including the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC), the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution’s Panel of Distinguished Neutrals (CPR), American Health Lawyers Association arbitration panel (AHLA), and the American Arbitration Association’s national large and complex case panel and appellate panels (AAA).
Henry also advises clients on antitrust, distribution and trade secret issues and in the preparation of distribution and trade secret agreements. Henry leads our Antitrust and Trade Regulation and Health Care practice groups. He served as an advisor to the American Law Institute project to draft the Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance.
Jeff Weiss spent more than 15 years in senior legal, policy, diplomatic, negotiation, and political roles in the US government across three administrations – including at the White House, Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), and the Office of the Secretary of Commerce – and now co-chairs Steptoe’s internationally recognized International Trade Policy practice and leads the firm’s Supply Chain team.
As lead of the Steptoe Supply Chain team, Jeff works with companies, trade associations, and coalitions to craft and implement advocacy plans to strengthen, build, or rebuild US supply chains; facilitate the movement of cargo; and improve US digital supply chain infrastructure. He also counsels companies on compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act; supply chain due diligence; and shifting supply chains to, e.g., minimize liability for customs duties and carbon border measures and position themselves for domestic content preferences. His advocacy efforts have involved the full panoply of legal and policy tools, including: border measures, tax credits, changes to procurement policy, climate measures, patent protection, standards, and creation of new structures within government.
Drawing on the insights he gained while in government, Jeff also helps clients effectively navigate complex global trade issues at the intersection of international trade, regulation, and standards, and develop and execute cross-cutting policy strategies. He advises and advocates for clients before the US congress and the administration, on a broad spectrum of matters related to international trade and investment, including: tariffs, technical regulations, standards, and conformity assessment procedures, digital trade, goods and services market access, and maritime and logistics. He provides counsel to clients, including governments, on issues arising under free trade agreements (e.g., USMCA, KORUS) and in other international fora (including standards bodies), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and under US trade and customs law (e.g., Sections 232 and 301, UFLPA, de minimis) and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Given his strong background working on international regulatory and standards issues at three US agencies, he works closely with his colleagues and Steptoe’s foreign offices to help clients navigate and influence developments in those areas.
Clients benefit from the regulatory and policy insights Jeff gained while serving in a number of trade-related positions across the US government. From 2015-2017, Jeff served as deputy director for policy and strategic planning at Commerce, where he served as a senior advisor to the Commerce Secretary on a wide range of economic policy issues, including port and supply chain issues. He was the lead US digital economy negotiator at the G20 talks hosted by China in 2016 and Germany in 2017 – which included negotiations on the free flow of data, cybersecurity, standards, competition, and privacy – and led development of the US strategy for international cybersecurity standardization. Jeff also previously served as associate administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. In this role, he served as the political deputy to the administrator, led development of US regulatory and standards policy and White House review of significant executive branch regulatory actions, and served as the US co-chair of the regulatory cooperation councils with Canada, the European Union, and Mexico.
Earlier in his government career, Jeff served at the USTR as senior director for Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), assistant general counsel, and assistant legal advisor at the Mission of the United States to the WTO in Geneva. While at USTR, Jeff served as the lead US negotiator and policymaker on technical barriers to trade at the WTO TBT Committee, non-agricultural market access negotiations, and in the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks. As the TBT negotiator, Jeff assisted US companies and trade associations in addressing dozens of foreign market access issues involving automobiles, chemicals, cosmetics, medical devices, wine, distilled spirits, information communications technology products, pharmaceuticals, appliances, children’s products, textiles and apparel, and food and agricultural goods, among others. Jeff also represented the United States in WTO disputes and the DSU negotiations during the Doha Round, served as the lead US lawyer on the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement, and was chief lawyer for NAFTA from 2004 to 2007.
Jeff chairs ASTM International Committee F49, Digital Information in the Supply Chain, which is developing international standards on traceability and authentication of supply chain information, as well as the goods movement process.
Alex Nordholm focuses his practice on corporate and transactional matters, including mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, equity investments, and corporate governance. Prior to joining Wyche, Alex served as the CEO of an international investment management firm, where he was responsible for overseeing the firm’s investment program and strategy, as well as overall management of the firm.
Prior to joining the group as its first CEO, he was a corporate attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Davis & Gilbert LLP in New York City, where his practice focused on advising private equity sponsors, venture capital firms, and multinational corporations in M&A and investment transactions. Before entering legal practice, he worked at a major hedge fund in the New York City area.
Alex earned a B.S. from Vanderbilt University and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also earned an MBA at the Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) credential and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Jeremiah Program’s New York chapter.
Alex Nordholm focuses his practice on corporate and transactional matters, including mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, equity investments, and corporate governance. Prior to joining Wyche, Alex served as the CEO of an international investment management firm, where he was responsible for overseeing the firm’s investment program and strategy, as well as overall management of the firm.
Prior to joining the group as its first CEO, he was a corporate attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Davis & Gilbert LLP in New York City, where his practice focused on advising private equity sponsors, venture capital firms, and multinational corporations in M&A and investment transactions. Before entering legal practice, he worked at a major hedge fund in the New York City area.
Alex earned a B.S. from Vanderbilt University and received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He also earned an MBA at the Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He holds the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) credential and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Jeremiah Program’s New York chapter.
Ms. Audrey Chen joined the firm in 1993 and practices in our Beijing office.
Ms. Chen has extensive experience in industries such as energy and natural resources, manufacturing, education, media, retails, pharmaceutical, food/agriculture, hi-tech, etc. She has advised clients to adopt creative structures, and negotiated complicated legal documents in connection with such projects. Ms. Chen’s clients include major international investment/ pension funds, universities, Chinese domestic corporations and Fortune 500 companies.
Audrey has also worked with many domestic and international clients from different industries in their cross border M&A transactions, and provided strategic planning and advice for cartel investigations, leniency applications and related litigations.
Ms. Chen previously worked in New York office of Jones Day Reavis & Pogue, where she advised clients on investment projects in China.
Carlos Velázquez de León is the managing partner of the Monterrey office and the head of the Corporate Law area in that office. He is a frequent speaker at national and international forums and a contributor to specialized publications.
Carlos, who has served on Lex Mundi’s board of directors since 2020, was chosen as Chair in 2024 at the network’s annual conference in London.
He has been a Professor at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) and the University of Monterrey (UDEM).
Former President and Counselor of the Mexico – United States Bar Association (USMBA).
Former President of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee of Lex Mundi.
Interested in meeting with Lex Mundi member firms when they are in South Carolina? Reach out to Wyche’s Henry Parr for details.
