Jeff is a member of Sutherland’s Corporate Practice Group and has broad legal and government experience in aerospace, defense, homeland security and national security matters, including mergers, acquisitions, antitrust, procurement, export controls and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He advises clients on international commercial, trade and public policy issues, including global navigation and timing systems and transactions in emerging markets. Jeff has significant regional experience in Europe, Japan and the Middle East. His areas of practice focus include:

• Aerospace and defense mergers and acquisitions such as Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of TRW and Newport News, ITT’s acquisition of Kodak’s Remote Sensing Business, and L-3 Communication’s acquisition of The Titan Corporation. Focus on antitrust, corporate, government contracts and related issues that arise during defense acquisitions.
• Foreign acquisitions of U.S. defense firms, including structuring industrial security arrangements such as special security agreements and proxies.
• Major internal investigations and compliance programs with respect to defense trade controls, government contracts and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
• Exon-Florio “national security” investigations. During his career, Jeff has participated in over 80 reviews of foreign acquisitions by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including most recently cases involving foreign investment in U.S. infrastructure firms in information technology, command control and communications and electronic voting as well as defense and space.
• International strategy and collaborative arrangements, including structuring complex international arrangements such as joint ventures and teaming arrangements and conducting “red team” reviews of the international strategy, organizational structure and regulatory approach of U.S. defense firms.
• Procurement matters, including bid protests and cutting-edge issues such as organizational conflict of interest.

Jeff is active in many aspects of public service. Since 2006, he has served as a member of the Defense Science Board Task Force, which examines the future of the U.S. defense industry, and previously served on a Task Force focused on the impact of export controls on the U.S. space industry. Jeff was appointed by Virginia Governor Mark Warner in 2004 and was re-appointed in 2006 by Governor Tim Kaine to the Secure Commonwealth Panel, which oversees that state’s homeland security policy planning. He recently chaired a sub-panel and co-authored a report on homeland security performance measures.

Jeff’s non-legal experience includes work with the U.S. government in several capacities. From 1999 to 2000, he served as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Industrial Affairs. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense (DoD) Distinguished Public Service Medal. While with the DoD, Jeff led the review of defense mergers and acquisitions, advised the Secretary of Defense on policies and programs concerning the defense industrial base and managed initiatives/negotiations with U.S. allies on trans-Atlantic defense industrial cooperation. In addition, Jeff managed the review of several path-breaking transatlantic defense acquisitions and was integrally involved in developing the Defense Trade Security Initiative (a major reform of U.S. defense export controls). Also, as Head of the U.S. Delegation for Negotiations with the European Union concerning U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and the proposed European system (Galileo), Jeff chaired the U.S. inter-agency committee on international aspects of GPS, led the development of a draft U.S.-EU cooperation agreement later consummated, and conducted numerous bilaterals with EU nations and Russia.

From 1997 to 1999, Jeff acted as the Special Advisor to Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, where he addressed international economic policy matters, including economic sanctions, anti-corruption and rule of law issues, and trade issues. He was a key architect of the Southeast Europe Compact for Reform, Investment, Integrity and Growth, a framework for economic reform, anti-corruption and assistance efforts in the region. Jeff also played a key role in Vice President Al Gore’s 1999 Global Forum Against Corruption.

From 1996 to 1997, Jeff was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Import Administration. He administered the anti-dumping and countervailing duties and handled major trade disputes, negotiations and related litigation.He assisted in supervising a complex rule-making on regulations to implement the Uruguay Round agreements. Jeff participated in the Gore-Kuchma Commission (leading an anti-corruption initiative) and the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission (as chair of the market access subcommittee).

Before joining the firm, Jeff spent more than 13 years in private practice in Washington, D.C. His work included:

• major trade negotiations and disputes (U.S.-Japan semiconductor negotiations and proceedings, steel, and paper);
• transactions in emerging markets, including a significant role in structuring the Enterprise Funds; private/public initiatives established by the U.S. government under the SEED Act to promote private sector development in Central Europe;
• the structuring of private equity funds and privatization transactions; work with Ex-Im Bank and OPIC; and
• a range of counseling on other international legal and public policy issues (treaties, agreements, and extraterritorial application of U.S. law).

Jeff currently serves as Executive Director of the Program on Transatlantic Security and Industry at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, which focuses on the evolving role of NATO, the development of coalition war fighting capabilities, and the integration of Transatlantic defense industries. In recent years, Jeff chaired major symposia on “The Defense Industry A Decade After the Last Supper,” European Defense R & D, the U.S.-German Security Relationship, and the “Visions of the 21st Century Space Industry.”

In 2001, Jeff served as a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and was for seven years an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he taught a course entitled “Central Europe and the NIS: Societies in Transition.” Following law school, he was a law clerk to a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Jeff is a member of the New York Council on Foreign Relations and has held leadership positions in the American Bar Association Section of International Law and Practice. He also served on the President’s Export Council Subcommittee on Export Administration.

Jeff has authored and co authored a number of articles on a range of international subjects, has spoken at numerous professional conferences, and has testified before Congress.