Kelley Drye Recognized as 2025 Law360 International Trade Group of the Year

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP’s international trade team won major antidumping and countervailing duty victories for clients in the aluminum and other industries last year, including a hard-fought, precedent-setting win before the Federal Circuit, making it one of the 2025 Law360 International Trade Practice Groups of the Year.

Practice chair John Herrmann told Law360 that, in addition to notching victories for clients, the firm also grew the team over the past year with important hires, including Kristine Pirnia, who joined in January 2025, and Carrie Owens, who joined in October from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to co-chair the customs practice.

“It was a good year both in terms of staying busy on the day-to-day work and also relatedly in building out our capabilities in several of our sub-practice areas within the group,” Herrmann said.

The group landed several important rulings for clients who produce aluminum products, which the firm called a ​“flashpoint in global trade,” because of their strategic importance and the potential for state-backed overproduction.

Based on Kelley Drye’s work, the U.S. International Trade Commission found in April that Chinese manufacturers of disposable aluminum containers, pans, trays and lids were dumping their products in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Commerce ultimately imposed antidumping duties of up to 288% and countervailing duties of 318%, and the ITC later issued a final affirmative injury determination, Herrmann said.

“We were extremely pleased to get that across the finish line and get some very good results from both agencies,” Herrmann said.

In a related case, Kelley Drye’s team represented American aluminum foil producers in litigation before the U.S. Court of International Trade in July. The case resulted in a ruling that a manufacturer was skirting American antidumping duties by importing aluminum products through South Korea and Thailand.

“We were able to demonstrate that the level of investment and the activity associated with the production operations in Thailand and Korea was relatively modest compared to the nature of the operations and the product that was manufactured in China,” Herrmann said.

In August, the practice group represented a domestic aluminum manufacturer coalition in a case that went to the Federal Circuit for a ruling on whether a certain manufacturer’s aluminum products were within the scope of trade orders. The litigation was ​“hard-fought,” Herrmann said, with lengthy proceedings before both the Court of International Trade and the Commerce Department, but Kelley Drye was able to land a ruling that strengthens how trade remedies can be enforced and sets precedent for scope determination cases.

Kelley Drye’s team also showed resourcefulness working in difficult situations over the past year, Herrmann said.

The firm noted one case in which it represented manufacturers of counterbalance torsion springs for overhead doors in a case before the ITC. Kelley Drye argued that manufacturers in India and China were dumping their products into the U.S. amid a surge of low-priced imports from the two countries, but the foreign manufacturers provided only minimal or incomplete data for the case.

Herrmann said the firm’s team was able to successfully fill in the gaps by using data from shipping manifests to document the volume and increase of imports from India and China, and won a final affirmative injury determination from the ITC.

“It was one of the first cases where we used that shipment manifest information in helping to build a record before the ITC that supported our client’s position where there wasn’t a lot of participation in the administrative proceedings, and otherwise wouldn’t have been significant information on the record before the agency about the volume of imports,” Herrmann said.

Herrmann has led Kelley Drye’s international trade team since 2022, after joining the firm as a special counsel in 2009 and moving up to partner in 2013. The group numbers 28 attorneys and is supported by a team of analysts from Georgetown Economic Services, a consulting subsidiary of the firm.

Herrmann said 2025 saw some turnover in the international trade group, as former chair and ​“lodestar” of the group Kathleen Cannon retired from practicing law, but the team has younger attorneys ready to fill in and push the practice forward.

“While we were very sad to wish Kathy well upon her retirement, I think we’ve got a very strong group of attorneys who are already stepping up and ready to represent our clients and take things forward for many years,” Herrmann said.

Read the full Law360 profile here.