BARBARA KUNZINGER BROUSSARD focuses her practice on international trade compliance, specifically customs and economic sanctions, and has particular experience in advising on complex international trade transactions. She advises clients on prospective compliance issues and, from an import perspective, helps clients understand and take advantage of potential duty saving opportunities, in addition to assisting clients with customs and sanctions enforcement issues and trade litigation.
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’s work at Sidley includes:
- Counseling a number of financial services clients on sanctions compliance activities and navigating increasingly complex sanctions programs.
- Assisting clients in developing or improving trade compliance programs, including preparing or updating written policies and procedures to support corporate compliance activities.
- Represented 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.
- Advising a number of clients on duty mitigation activities related to the Section 301 tariffs imposed against goods from China.
- Advised 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.
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.