28TH
ANNUAL ALUMNI CONVOCATION LOOKS AT CROSS-BORDER TRADE AND THE STATE CONTROL
BOARD
With the innovation of “real-time CLE” – continuing
legal education certificates available the same day – UB Law’s 28th
annual Convocation took on the issues of cross-border trade and the plight of
the City of Buffalo.
The Nov. 15 event, titled “Buffalo:
City on the Edge,” addressed legal and ethical issues facing business in the
Niagara Frontier, as well as the state control board that currently oversees
Buffalo’s finances.
Sponsored by the UB Law Alumni Association
and the Law School, the program was followed by a luncheon at which SUNY
Distinguished Teaching Professor Kenneth A. Joyce was presented the school’s
highest honor, the Edwin F. Jaeckle Award.
Former University President
William Greiner congratulates Joyce
Adjunct Associate Professor Amy Deen
Westbrook began the first segment with a discussion of issues involved in doing
business across international borders, with particular focus on the North American
Free Trade Agreement, the world’s largest free-trade pact.
She noted that in the 10 years since
NAFTA was implemented, cross-border investment has continued to grow. Annual
U.S. investment in Canada is $140 billion, and Canadian investment in the
United States is $90 billion.
Westbrook also described the
treaty’s mechanism for resolving disputes among trading partners, citing as one
example complaints by U.S. companies against Canada as the result of Canadian
environmental regulations. “Companies can take the government to arbitration,
alleging the environmental regulations were discriminatory and expropriated the
U.S. company’s investment,” she said.
Such requests for arbitration, she said, mean “NAFTA
countries are pretty cautions right now about putting in place a regulation,
even an environmental one, that is going to affect foreign investors.”
Discussing employment and human
resources issues for cross-border hiring was Rosanna Berardi ’97, an
immigration lawyer at Hodgson Russ, LLP. “In this specific climate, it is not a
good time to mess around,” Berardi said. “It is really critical and important
for attorneys and employers to make sure any foreign national who is coming to
the U.S., whether it is one time only for a business meeting or to come here
permanently, is properly documented. The government is under tremendous
pressure to enforce the immigration laws.”
Berardi detailed the mechanisms by
which Canadian citizens are approved for working in the United States. For
example, “intercompany transferees” are employees of a Canadian business
seeking to expand into the States. “You need to show that your businesses are
affiliated, that you have rented sufficient office space and that you are a
manager,” she listed.
As for the fabled “green card” –
which, Berardi said, now is actually a tint of pink – the easiest way to get
one is to marry a U.S. citizen. Or, she said, “it requires an employer to
sponsor you, and in many cases to prove that there are no U.S. citizens who can
do your job, which is incredibly difficult in this economic climate.” There is
also a “green card lottery”; and finally, a foreign national can get a green
card by investing at least $1 million in the United States and promising to
create at least 10 jobs.
Attorney Rodney O. Personius ’76
next discussed criminal statutes governing cross-border business activities.
“This is a growing area of attention by the government,” he said. “There is an
aura of suspicion that attaches to anything that happens at the border.”
After 9/11, he said, “the use of old
statutes has been increased, and new statutes have been created.” For example,
under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act the president has the
authority to control exports to and imports from a designated country as well
as financial transactions with that country. Additionally, “transshipment
rules” restrict certain exports so that manufacturers cannot “get around a
prohibition of an export to Iran, for example, by sending the product through
Canada first.”
Personius reminded the audience of U.S. laws related
to money laundering. It is not illegal to bring more than $10,000 in currency
into or out of the United States, he said, “but it is illegal to fail to report
it, it is illegal to structure a transaction to get around it, it is also
illegal to try to conceal the fact that you are transporting more than $10,000
in currency.”
In conclusion, he listed countries
of concern for future dealings: “If you have a client that hints to you that he
or she is dealing with these countries, it raises a red flag,” he said:
Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Congo, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Liberia,
Libya, North Korea, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Vietnam.
Concluding the part of the program dealing
with cross-border issues, Joyce Cavanagh-Wood, immigration program manager for
Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s Regional Programme Centre (RPC) in
Buffalo, discussed issues related to sending employees to Canada. She said her
office processes about 20,000 such cases annually for permanent residents and
16,000 for temporary admission.
Every year, she said, there are about 90 million
crossings at the Canada-U.S. border, and every traveler is subject to
examination. “The border represents a unique opportunity on both sides to
confirm the identity and intentions of travelers and to determine whether there
are elements in a person’s past that might have a bearing on public safety and
security,” she said.
Tourists and visitors can enter Canada with a minimum
of formality and documentation, she said. But “those with criminal records are
being asked questions they were never before asked. When the discovery is made
that they are inadmissible for a crime committed long ago and which they
consider minor, they tend to be surprised, vexed and sometimes belligerent.
Under Canadian immigration legislation, foreigners who have been convicted of a
criminal offense at home or abroad, or who have committed a criminal act
outside Canada, may be denied entry.” That includes impaired driving, which,
she said, in Canada is “considered a serious criminal offense.”
People who are denied entry into
Canada, she said, can apply for a temporary permit or a permanent status called
rehabilitation. And she cited her agency’s Web site, www.buffalogc.ca, as a source of
comprehensive information.
Attendees at 28th
Annual Alumni Convocation
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