Barbara Broussard

BARBARA KUNZINGER BROUSSARD focuses her practice on international trade compliance, specifically customs and economic sanctions and has particular experience in reviewing international trade transactions. She advises clients on prospective compliance issues and helps clients understand potential duty saving opportunities, in addition to assisting clients with enforcement issues and customs litigation. Barbara also serves on the firm’s COVID-19 Task Force.

Barbara’s work at Sidley includes:

• Representing a Fortune 100 company in a customs classification litigation at the Court of International Trade and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  
• Successfully represented the National Association of Manufactures at the Court of International Trade in challenging U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s regulations limiting excise tax drawback.  
• Assisting a number of financial services clients with respect to sanctions compliance activities and navigating increasingly complex sanctions programs.  
• Advising a number of clients on duty mitigation activities related to the Section 301 tariffs imposed against goods from China.
• Advising the Corporate Compliance Monitor of HSBC Holdings plc and its subsidiaries appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on sanctions matters in connection with the $1.9 billion resolution of money laundering and sanctions violations. 
• Represented a manufacturer in a series of protest filings with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to claim duty-free treatment on remanufactured goods otherwise subject to over six million dollars in duty.
• Advising several large importers with respect to prior disclosure filings with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to limit the risk of possible enforcement actions for classification, valuation and trade preference eligibility issues.

Prior to joining Sidley, Barbara worked as an attorney-advisor for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the Office of International Trade, Regulations and Rulings. While at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Barbara authored rulings and protest decisions on valuation, special classification, trade preference eligibility, and country of origin marking, as well as final determinations for purposes of government procurement. In this role, Barbara spoke on a trade facilitation panel on customs advance rulings at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference. 

Barbara earned her law degree, magna cum laude, at the University of Houston Law Center, where she served on the executive board for the Houston Journal of International Law. While in law school, Barbara served as an Arbitration Research Scholar and assisted the editors of the AAA Yearbook on Arbitration & the Law, 23rd Edition, Stephen K. Huber and Ben H. Sheppard, Jr.