Vice President & General Counsel, Minh Ngoc T. Nguyen, was featured in the June 6 issue of Legal Times. In the article titled, "Fulfilling foreign judgments," Ms. Nguyen comments on revising the DC law on enforcement of foreign judgments.

On May 25 in Nashville, Tennessee, associate Kyle Choi spoke at the National Association of Credit Management's (NACM) 115th Credit Congress and Exposition. Mr. Choi's lecture focused on exploring the due diligence efforts needed to conduct in-country business in South Korea.

During his Credit Congress session, Mr. Choi addressed three main topics: why doing business with South Korean companies is a good idea, the possibility of and how to prevent problems when involved in business transactions with South Korean companies including use of various types of payment mechanisms such as when to use letters of credit, guarantees, and how to resolve problems that inevitably arise (use of arbitration, litigation, etc.).

Beginning July 20, Mr. Choi will host a 2-day webinar similarly titled: "Doing Business in South Korea" for FCIB – The Association of Executives in Finance, Credit & International Business. He will begin with an introduction to South Korean culture, followed by a description of how to effectively do business with South Korean customers and ensure payment, mitigate risks on credit sales into South Korea, and how to turn a credit application into a valuable legal document that can provide protection in cases of buyer defaults. Topics include:

For additional information on the webinar, please visit FCIB Global.

As a law student, Ms. Aponte-Rossini concentrated on human rights law and was a Student-Attorney with the George Washington University Law School's International Human Rights Clinic, directed by Professor Arturo Carrillo. After gradating law school and being admitted into the Maryland Bar, Ms. Aponte-Rossini joined Bluestone Law, Ltd in Bethesda, MD as an Associate Attorney. She was honored to be asked by Prof. Carrillo in 2010 to co-author a section of a book to be published by the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia in conjunction with the Defensoría del Pueblo of Colombia and the George Washington University Law School.

The book, titled "Group and Class Actions in Cases of Grave Violations of Human Rights" (Acciones de grupo y de clase en casos de graves vulneraciones a derechos humanos), was published on October 2010 in Spanish. It discusses group actions, which are a process provided for under the Colombian Constitution for addressing violations of fundamental rights, and contains two sections authored by researchers from the IHRC, that offer a comparative law backdrop. One of the sections discusses class actions in the United States, and the other, co-authored by Ms. Aponte-Rossini, presents an overview of the treatment actions by collectivities in the Inter-American Human Rights System.

In March 2010, prior to the publication of the book, a conference was organized and held in Bogota by the aforementioned institutions, where the research and findings contained in the publication were presented. The conference was well-received by members of the Colombian legal community, including judges, lawyers, law professors, and law students.

Ms. Aponte-Rossini was invited to speak as part of a panel on the Inter-American Human Rights system, where she presented the research she conducted for the publication and her conclusions on the subject. A section of the book co-authored by Ms. Aponte-Rossini, titled "Some Considerations regarding the Treatment of Collective Subjects in the Inter-American System for the Protection of Human Rights" (Algunas consideraciones en torno al tratamiento de los sujetos colectivos en el Sistema Interamericano de Protección de los Derechos Humanos) can be found here. (30 MB PDF)

Bluestone Law International was asked by the Office of International Trade, of the U.S. Small Business Administration to participate on April 13, 2010 and on April 15, 2010, in its Export Training Assistance Program (ETAP) to present sessions on the legal aspects of international transactions to executives from local community banks in Maryland and Washington, D.C. The sessions, were presented by Stephen L. Bluestone, Managing Director, and Zachary Bluestone, Vice President. Areas covered included initial due diligence before entering into a transaction, risks of doing business internationally, favorable contracts and transactional documents, asset and payment protection devices and practices, and debt recovery capabilities and alternatives.

The SBA pilot project consisted of a seven session program which was held in both Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. The program commenced with a session on International Trade History with further sessions dealing with such topics as finance, federal and state agencies, and the roles of freight forwarders and custom brokers. The Program was also attended by SBA District staff specializing in international trade from each of the two regions and state and county small business counselors. At the end of the last session, the "students" were presented by the respective SBA regional directors with diplomas, memorializing their completion of the Program.

To assist banks which were in attendance during these sessions, as well as other community banks throughout the country, many of which will be attending future SBA sessions, BLI is putting together a booklet containing the materials presented during its session on legal aspects on international transactions.

While the preparation of the booklet is on-going, we have attached the document we used to guide our discussion, entitled Overview of Legal Aspects of International Transactions for SBA International Trade Program.