Aerospace & Defense

For contractors focusing in the aerospace and defense industry, we provide full-service government contracts legal representation. Our experience across the full range of legal counseling, litigation, and investigation work in this space allows us to guide clients through the complex regulatory and enforcement environment that permeates federal procurement. Principal areas of experience include:

• Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) issues
• Requests for equitable adjustment and certified claims
• Bid protests
• Prime-sub contract formation
• Teaming and joint venture agreements
• Small business preferences
• Suspension and debarment
• Mandatory disclosures
• Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) compliance
• Cybersecurity

Learn more about our government contracts services.

Our team helps aerospace and defense clients navigate regulatory, criminal, and civil challenges worldwide. We coordinate cross-border investigations, work with local counsel, manage global differences in the approach to privilege, advise on cultural nuances with the benefit of local language skills, coordinate regulatory settlements, and manage litigation risk. In the United States, we have a deep bench of False Claims Act (FCA) practitioners who regularly represent major aerospace and defense and other companies in their most significant FCA investigations and litigation.

Our practice encompasses the following areas:

• Arbitration
• Bribery and corruption
• Criminal and regulatory investigations and enforcement
• Civil fraud enforcement
• Crisis management
• Antitrust and competition
• Internal investigations
• International trade and national security
• FCA litigation
• Whistleblower investigations and litigation
• FCPA investigations and litigation
• Privacy and cybersecurity investigations
• Congressional, independent commission, and parliamentary proceedings
• Trade secrets and economic espionage

Learn more about our white collar litigation and government investigations services.

Aerospace and defense companies are major global employers. We draw on the talent and resources of our labor and employment lawyers around the world to counsel clients through their most significant and complex labor, employment, immigration, and benefit issues. Our experience includes:

• Arbitrations
• Collective bargaining negotiations and representing clients before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
• Service Contract Act compliance
• Prevailing wage and other wage-and-hour requirements for government contractors
• US Department of Labor and state labor department investigations
• Wage-and-hour law compliance and litigation
• Executive compensation and employee benefit plans
• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) compliance
• Employment litigation
• Internal investigations
• Restrictive covenant drafting and enforcement
• Whistleblower investigations
• Workplace culture and workforce reorganization

Learn more about our labor, employment, and benefits services.

Our lawyers advise aerospace and defense companies as they face US and global compliance risks, assess the viability of supply chains, manage cross-border investment due diligence, deal with cybersecurity issues, and meet complex multijurisdictional requirements. Our experience includes investigating, resolving, and advising clients in the following areas:

• International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)
• Export Administration Regulations (EAR)
• Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regulations
• Due diligence
• Licensing
• National security issues
• Cross-border investments and related regulatory due diligence before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
• Cross-border issues under Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) review regimes
• US Customs and Border Protection requirements
• US and global compliance requirements

Learn more about our international trade and national security services.

Cybersecurity is a paramount consideration for aerospace and defense companies globally as technology advances, businesses become more digitally driven, cyber risk intensifies with geopolitical tensions, data breaches become more sophisticated and publicized, and regulation increases. We customize solutions and policies to meet each client’s business demands and ever-changing technology infrastructure. When breaches, disputes, or litigation are underway or unavoidable, our crisis-tested and trial-ready data breach response and litigation lawyers focus on swift and practical response and resolution. Our experience with aerospace and defense industry clients includes:

• Business disputes
• Civil fraud enforcement
• Privacy and cybersecurity process and policy development and implementation
• Compliance reviews and audits
• Online and website privacy agreements
• Third-party vendor and customer transactions, due diligence, and data collection

Learn more about our privacy and cybersecurity services.

Protecting intellectual property and trade secrets is critical to aerospace and defense companies operating in a cutting-edge, competitive, and sensitive global industry. Our global patent team has prepared and prosecuted patents for the world’s largest companies, including those at the forefront of developing aerospace and defense technology. Our work on behalf of aerospace and defense clients includes advising in the following areas:

• Arbitration
• Cloud computing software and infrastructure
• Computer hardware and operating system software
• Signal processing
• Nanotechnology
• Semiconductor services
• Trade secret policies

Learn more about our intellectual property and trade secrets, proprietary information, and noncompetition/nondisclosure agreements capabilities.

We advise aerospace and defense industry clients on M&A transactions, joint ventures, and licensing and partnership arrangements, and offer guidance through antitrust and other regulatory approvals. Our team also helps clients conduct due diligence in aerospace and defense transactions, including change of control and related notifications, government contracts, labor and employment, privacy and cybersecurity, patent and data rights, anticorruption, export controls, and national security. In the United States, we regularly assist purchasers and sellers of US aerospace and defense assets in navigating regulations from the DOJ, DOD, US Department of the Treasury, and US Department of Homeland Security, including special security agreements and CFIUS filings.