US law firm Steptoe & Johnson is moving one of its top trade lawyers to London to add strength to its Brexit offering. Meredith Rathbone, who has spent nearly 15 years in Steptoe’s Washington DC office as a US qualified international regulatory lawyer, relocated to London to beef up the Europe-based trade controls practice in London and Brussels.
Sanctions
As a partner in the international regulation and compliance group, Ms Rathbone has advised on economic sanctions, export controls, and other trade-related matters affecting clients. She regularly interfaces with US regulators, and assists clients with conducting internal investigations, establishing compliance and audit programmes, undertaking classification and jurisdiction assessments of their products, software, and technology, seeking licenses, and obtaining advisory opinions from the relevant regulatory agencies. Ms Rathbone has also defended clients in criminal investigations related to economic sanctions and export controls.
Brexit
'As Brexit will usher in a new trade and investment relationship between the UK and the rest of the EU, we believe a strong UK presence remains vital in the international marketplace and continue to invest in our London office,' said Steptoe chair Phil West. 'Meredith’s relocation to our London office reinforces our commitment to further expand our services to multinational companies located in Europe and Asia.'
Compliance expansion
Ms Rathbone’s move to London expands the office’s compliance team which recruited Jeff Cottle and Patrick Rappo in 2013 and John Rupp in 2015. Mr Cottle joined Steptoe from BHP Billiton, the world’s largest diversified mining, oil and gas and natural resources extractives company, where he helped manage the company’s global anti-corruption and trade compliance programs. Mr Rappo joined Steptoe from the UK Serious Fraud Office, where he had served as joint head of bribery and corruption and was a key participant in the efforts to introduce deferred prosecution agreements in the United Kingdom. Mr Rupp has more than 40 years’ experience advising clients on compliance matters and conducting internal investigations involving trade control issues, bribery, money laundering, accounting irregularities and pharmaceutical marketing issues.
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