Appleton Luff

The Firm's prime specialisation is international trade law, at national, regional and multilateral levels. The Firm advises governments and businesses on both defensive and offensive trade strategies. Its expertise covers all WTO-related areas, such as customs legislation (including rules of origin), trade remedies, agricultural policies, non-tariff barriers to trade (including technical regulations, standards and sanitary and phytosanitary measures), subsidies, trade in services, trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights and dispute settlement. As part of our international trade strategy, we have added our Silicon Valley Office to provide intellectual property services as they relate to trade, such as advising on 337 proceedings conducted by the U.S. International Trade Commission.


Firm members have unique experience advising nations on negotiating strategies before multilateral fora, such as the WTO, and at the bilateral and regional level. Firm members assist governments and private companies to assess the compatibility of domestic laws with the WTO Agreement and various regional trade agreements. Firm members have extensive experience advising on matters arising under regional and plurilateral agreements (preferential trade agreements). A list of agreements with which firm members have worked is available here. In addition, firm members advise on domestic regulatory issues, including the compatibility of domestic regulations with international and regional trade rules. We litigate before international jurisdictions and, with our clients, assist with market access issues.


Dr. Appleton, Dr. Luff, Dr. Rios-Herran, Mr. Sim and Mr Macrory teach international trade law in various universities in Europe, the United States, Asia and Africa and have published extensively on trade-related legal topics.

The Appleton Luff Washington office was one of the firm's first locations and provides services as follows: Trade Litigation : our professionals have worked on behalf of government and corporate clients in anti-dumping, countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) and safeguard investigations conducted by U.S., Canadian and Latin American governments. Customs : our professionals have worked on origin, classification and valuation issues on behalf of exporters and importers. Litigation : our professionals have represented clients in U.S. court and NAFTA panel appeals of trade litigation and customs matters. Advisory Services : our professionals have advised sovereign and corporate clients on free trade agreements (FTAs) and other government policy issues.