Food & Beverage
Our Food & Beverage Industry Team combines legal, regulatory, and scientific experience to help you address increasing industry challenges and protect your interests.
There is no shortage of challenges facing businesses in the food and beverage industry — bioterrorism and food and beverage safety regulations, labeling class actions, genetically modified ingredients, nanotech, nutrition politics, changing product availability, regulated prices, mandatory labeling, product recalls, and mounting processing issues, to name just a few. These are not simply legal challenges — they affect every aspect of how food and beverage sector companies like yours do business.
To address the challenges and opportunities in this competitive environment, our interdisciplinary Food & Beverage Industry Team provides comprehensive legal and lobbying services for companies that produce, distribute, or sell food and beverages, and the businesses that deal with them. We represent manufacturers, processors, packers, farmers, warehousemen, distributors, brokers, wholesalers, and retailers in structuring their organizations, navigating regulatory processes, and protecting the proprietary rights associated with their products and technologies. We also assist agribusinesses, importers/exporters, food and beverage service organizations, trade associations, and equipment manufacturers.
The services we provide to meet your needs are outlined below.
We represent clients before the FDA, USDA, the USPTO, and state agencies in all phases of the product development cycle. We provide counsel on product and ingredient notifications, FDA inspections, regulatory and due diligence audits, and Good Manufacturing Practice requirements. Our attorneys advise on licensing agreements, manufacturer and distributor registration, pending legislation, product corrective actions, and regulatory aspects of product development.
Nothing is more important to you than your reputation for distributing safe, wholesome products. Food and beverage safety issues continue to pose new and difficult challenges, including consumer allergies, gaining approval for new food and beverage ingredients and food and beverage contact substances, differing national standards on safety, and new legal and regulatory perspectives on existing ingredients. Our attorneys address all of these issues, serving as your counselor, advocate, and advisor in state, federal, and international forums.
We will review your labeling and packaging to make sure it complies with state and federal regulations, and assist you with any food- and beverage-labeling issues. Should you find yourself facing a product recall, we bring extensive experience to your table for all stages of the recall process, from notifying regulators to public relations. In addition, we craft legal notices, and work with regulatory agencies, insurance carriers, distributors, and customers on your behalf. Our attorneys and Public Policy professionals help develop and implement a media relations plan tailored specifically for your needs.
Trademark and copyright practitioners help you protect brand value. We develop a strategic approach to the acquisition, maintenance, and defense of this “creative equity,” including trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets, and other types of IP. We file and prosecute applications to acquire trademark and copyright registrations and issued patents before the U.S. Copyright Office and the USPTO. We enforce and defend intellectual property rights and infringement claims in state and federal courts and with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal enforcement agencies. We also coordinate these protection and enforcement activities globally.
We advise on FTC and FDA product advertising and promotion requirements, including endorser liability, advertising substantiation, false and deceptive advertising, and First Amendment protection. Doing business on the Web requires specific legal counsel relating to Web site development agreements, search engine agreements, trademarks and co-branding, data privacy, and security. We have developed best practices for addressing e-commerce legal issues facing the food and beverage industry and will share this experience with your team.
If you face legal disputes, our top priority is protecting your business interests. We will craft cost-effective strategies for delivering the results you need. With one of the largest, most comprehensive litigation practices in the United States, we provide you with a full range of dispute resolution and litigation services from a team experienced in successfully resolving false advertising and product labeling claims, supply contract disputes, litigation arising out of product recalls, and a wide range of other disputes for food and beverage industry companies.
We have decades of experience guiding businesses in all phases of the distribution relationship. We will use this experience to help you identify and solve the complicated legal questions involved in structuring and financing distribution channels; renewing, revising and expanding existing distribution channels; and in the acquisition, syndication, sale, and termination of channel members. Our team will negotiate and resolve disputes between suppliers, resellers, brokers, dealers, distributors, and franchisees, and will handle litigation and arbitrations throughout the country on your behalf.
If you are in the import/export business, we prepare and review international sales agreements, foreign source production agreements, and agent and distributor agreements. Our team will counsel you on U.S. export control and anti-boycott laws, international competition policy, export finance, international payment procedures, foreign exchange matters, global customs laws and procedures, and international transportation. We also advise you on the classification and valuation of imports, as well as entry procedures. We have represented clients before the CBP, the U.S. Court of International Trade, and ITC relating to issues such as antidumping and countervailing duty laws, and related measures for redressing unfair trade practices or providing assistance to U.S. industries injured by imports.
Our team prepares you for routine or special inspections, product recalls, reportable food and beverage registry notifications, and the day-to-day regulatory issues facing the food and beverage industry. Having counseled scores of businesses through this process, we are familiar with the best practices and can help you manage regulatory issues involving the FDA, USDA, and state regulatory authorities.
In addition to helping with FDA compliance emergencies, we also work with you to avoid enforcement problems by conducting regulatory and compliance audits in the areas where you may be concerned about possible exposure.
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Due to the extreme sensitivity surrounding issues stemming from FDA-related allegations, it is critical for you to work with business counsel who are rooted in real-world experience. We offer the complete range of legal advice, from the establishment and maintenance of compliance programs to representation before U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the United States Department of Justice, and FDA enforcement proceedings. We represent clients in matters ranging from warning letters to defending companies and individuals facing criminal prosecution, and provide issues management and crisis communications counsel.
Contaminated food and beverage claims have legal, operational, and public relations consequences for your company. We guide you through the process of dealing with regulatory authorities, the media, and customers, and in defending product liability actions. In addition, our strategic communications practitioners are nationally recognized for developing strategy, crafting messages, and designing campaigns that help you meet clearly defined objectives.
We litigate a wide variety of cases for both plaintiffs and defendants in virtually all substantive antitrust areas. Our attorneys will work with you to design antitrust compliance programs; provide guidance on pricing, restraints, distribution, and monopolization issues; handle grand jury investigations; and appear before federal and state antitrust enforcement agencies to resolve concerns about your practices and transactions.
We appreciate the benefits of strategic and creative partnering. We will bring our experience with acquisitions and divestitures, negotiated and hostile tender and exchange offers, leveraged and management buyouts, private equity and venture capital investments, recapitalizations and reorganizations, and joint venture transactions to your team. We also will counsel you in the advantages of bundling powerhouse brands and preserving your brand equity in newly acquired product portfolios.
Whether you are a lender and borrower for food and beverage industry companies, you face unique statutory restrictions and practical hurdles in obtaining financing. Federal law regulates the use of food and beverage products as collateral. Realizing value from perishable commodities requires practical experience and knowledge. We act as special counsel to food and beverage industry borrowers and lenders financing food and beverage industry companies. On your behalf, we will handle a broad range of commercial loan, project finance, public finance, health care finance, and asset securitization transactions.
Our attorneys represent bondholder and trade creditor committees, secured and unsecured creditors, and asset purchasers in some of the nation’s largest food and beverage industry restructurings, reorganizations, and bankruptcies. We will share our broad and deep experience in negotiating and litigating all aspects of corporate reorganizations, out-of-court workouts, and leveraged buyouts with your team.
If you are a creditor, we will help you in obtaining early payment of claims and the pursuit and defense of fraudulent and preferential transfer issues, as well as the enforcement of security interests.
We understand complaints and lawsuits brought by employees and former employees can be damaging to the growth, profitability, and public image of your business. We will counsel and represent your company in labor relations, discrimination complaints, employment agreements and terminations, affirmative action programs, immigration, reductions in force, employee benefits, and executive compensation. Our attorneys take a preventative approach and help you identify and anticipate employee complaints, governmental agency actions, and union problems.
We also will provide you with compliance counseling on a wide range of employee benefits and executive compensation matters. We represent corporations and their benefit plans in litigation involving employment benefits and other obligations under ERISA. Through extensive work with the IRS and the United States Department of Labor, our attorneys establish tax-qualified retirement plans and non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements.
One of the most challenging and dynamic issues you deal with on a daily basis is environmental law. We will counsel you on regulatory permitting, compliance, transactional due diligence, and litigation services. We offer your team creative environmental solutions that fit the economic, business, and legal framework in which you operate. Our team has extensive experience in pesticide approval, use and remediation; securing water rights and permitting of water supplies and discharges; regulation of non-point discharges from farms; odor issues; and agricultural wetlands programs as well as Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and EPA Superfund matters.
As the demand for innovative products increases at unprecedented rates, companies with food and beverage industry interests need protection for their valuable technologies — and they need to understand the ways they can profit from this demand. We draft patent applications, procure worldwide patent and trademark rights, negotiate license and distribution agreements affecting technology transfers, and advise on litigation, interferences, ITC actions, and other inter partes matters.