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The Women in Law Empowerment Forum (WILEF) has released its list of Gold Standard Certification recipients for 2017. A total of 44 law firms throughout the United States were chosen for the leadership roles achieved by their equity women partners. Frost Brown Todd (FBT) was recognized as a “five-time Gold Standard firm,” having received its initial certification in 2011.

“We are proud to be a five-time winner of the WILEF award,” says Kim Mauer, chair of FBT’s Women’s Initiative. “This award shows that we are moving in the right direction. But, even as the requirements to win this award continue to move up, we know that we also need to continue to work even harder to create a firm where everyone is encouraged to be their full self and, as a result, to be able to work even more effectively for our clients.”

To be considered for inclusion, firms had to meet at least four of seven criteria regarding the percentage make up of women in firm leadership and compensation:

• 20% of equity partners or, alternatively, 33% or more of the attorneys becoming equity partners during the past 12 months are women
• 15% of firm and U.S. branch office heads are women equity partners
• 20% of the firm’s governance committee are women equity partners
• 20% of the firm’s compensation committee or its equivalent are women equity partners
• 25% of the firm’s practice group/department heads are women equity partners
• 15% of the top half of the firm’s equity partners in terms of compensation are women
• 7% of women equity partners are women of color or 3.5% of women equity partners are LGBT (new criteria for 2017)

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Innovative research, analytics and visualization tools expand the LexisNexis Legal Analytics suite

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 08, 2017

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional, part of information and analytics provider RELX Group, today announced its acquisition of Ravel Law, a legal research, analytics and visualization platform that empowers users to contextualize and interpret vast amounts of information to uncover valuable insights. The acquisition will expand the LexisNexis Legal Analytics suite of products through full integration of Ravel Law’s judicial analytics, data visualization technology and unique case law PDF content from the Harvard Law Library into Lexis Litigation Profile Suite® and Lexis Advance®. The integration of these tools strengthens LexisNexis’ position as a leader in the legal analytics space.

Ravel Law’s machine-learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies mine published case opinions, providing a wealth of information that helps litigators quickly uncover new insights and build specific arguments for use in court.

“To be successful in today’s competitive legal environment, lawyers need to make faster, more informed decisions, based on data that is incorporated into their natural workflow,” said Sean Fitzpatrick, managing director of North American Research Solutions at LexisNexis. “That’s a big step forward for the legal information industry and precisely why LexisNexis continues to aggressively invest in, build and integrate innovative capabilities, such as those developed by Ravel Law, into our ever-expanding portfolio of Legal Analytics solutions.”

Ravel Law’s technology will enhance the current Legal Analytics suite of solutions offered by LexisNexis, including LexisNexis MedMal Navigator®, LexisNexis® Verdict & Settlement Analyzer, Intelligize and Lex Machina. After acquisition, Ravel Law’s analytics offerings will continue to expand and be fully integrated into Lexis Litigation Profile Suite, delivering new insights around judicial behavior that complement the product’s current expert witness intelligence. Additionally, Ravel Law’s leading case law data visualization tool will be integrated into Lexis Advance, expanding the platform’s current visualization offerings. Finally, Ravel Law’s access to the Harvard case law content and PDF images of original case opinions will enrich the already expansive case law collection available from LexisNexis. LexisNexis is committed to continuing Ravel Law’s open access to this historical collection, giving the American public, and anyone with an internet connection, access to this vital collection of legal information.

For litigators and corporate counsel, this expansive suite of analytics tools will provide unprecedented insight into judges, jurisdictions, motion practice and parties to cases. For example, Lex Machina provides Legal Analytics about the behavior of judges, law firms, lawyers and parties, enabling them to craft successful trial strategies, win cases and close business. Lexis Litigation Profile Suite, enhanced by Ravel Law technology, will complement this offering by providing insight into arguments that are likely to be persuasive to a judge. When combined with the behavior analysis from Lex Machina, litigators have the ability to build judge-specific arguments for use in court.

“LexisNexis is truly leading the development of the field of Legal Analytics—through our content, tools, and engineering expertise,” said Jeff Pfeifer, vice president of product management at LexisNexis. “With the acquisition of Ravel Law, we’re gaining more than technology and content—we’re also gaining exceptionally talented people. The Ravel Law team has a proven track record of innovation, and we’re excited to have them on board.”

“The Ravel Law team is excited to join LexisNexis for many reasons, chief among them is that we share a vision for the role of technology in the practice of law in which innovative, highly effective and easy to use tools help lawyers make data driven decisions,” said Daniel Lewis, CEO of Ravel Law. “We look forward to bringing our expertise and technology to that effort at LexisNexis.”

Ravel Law and its team will continue to be based in San Francisco. The acquisition is part of LexisNexis’ vision to support the data-driven lawyer of the future. By creating leading-edge research and analytics solutions, LexisNexis helps legal professionals harness the power of data to work more efficiently, offer more informed legal counsel and drive success for their clients and for their practice.

About LexisNexis® Legal & Professional

LexisNexis Legal & Professional is a leading global provider of content and technology solutions that enable professionals in legal, corporate, tax, government, academic and non-profit organizations to make informed decisions and achieve better business outcomes. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. Today, LexisNexis Legal & Professional harnesses leading-edge technology and world-class content to help professionals work in faster, easier and more effective ways. Through close collaboration with its customers, the company ensures organizations can leverage its solutions to reduce risk, improve productivity, increase profitability and grow their business. LexisNexis Legal & Professional, which serves customers in more than 175 countries with 10,000 employees worldwide, is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.

About RELX Group

RELX Group is a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. The Group serves customers in more than 180 countries and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs approximately 30,000 people, of whom almost half are in North America. RELX PLC is a London -listed holding company which owns 52.9% of RELX Group. RELX NV is an Amsterdam -listed holding company which owns 47.1% of RELX Group. The shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX and RENX. The total market capitalisation is approximately £33.4bn/€38.2bn/$43.1bn*.

*Note: Current market capitalization can be found at http://www.relx.com/InvestorCentre

About Ravel Law

Ravel Law is a legal research, visualization, and analytics platform. Ravel Law empowers lawyers to do data-driven research, with analytics and interfaces that help them sift through vast amounts of legal information to find what matters. Established by lawyers in 2012, Ravel Law spun out of interdisciplinary work between Stanford University’s law school, computer science department, and d.school. Ravel Law is based in San Francisco, and is funded by New Enterprise Associates, North Bridge Venture Partners, Ulu Ventures, Experiment Fund, and Work-Bench. Ravel Law’s Judge Analytics was the best new product of the year in 2016 by the American Association of Law Librarians (AALL). The company also won two Innovator Awards from The Recorder in 2014 and 2016.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/06/prweb14382475.htm

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The FINANCIAL — Chambers and Partners and its rankings have featured in many notable publications around the world. It covers over 190 countries across the world and also includes Region-wide and Global-wide sections. 

It ranks both lawyers and law firms based on the research of more than 170 full-time editors and researchers.

Chambers Global is published annually. Accordingly we are providing the updated rankings of the new edition of ranked firms and lawyers in General Business Law – Georgia.

RANKED FIRMS

Band 1

• BGI Legal

• BLC Law Office

• Dentons Georgia

Band 2

• Business Legal Bureau

• Dechert LLP

• Gvinadze & Partners LLC

• Mgaloblishvili Kipiani Dzidziguri (MKD)

Band 3

• Nodia, Urumashvili and Partners Ltd

Band 4

• Law Firm Begiashvili & Co. Ltd

• Eristavi & Partners

Band 1

BGI Legal

Lasha Gogiberidze maintains an excellent reputation for his expertise in capital markets and project fi-nance, handling some of the market’s most prominent lending transactions. Clients highlight him as an “open-minded” practitioner who “always comes up with a good solution” and provides advice which is “straight to the point and concise.”

Zaza Bibilashvili has experience of handling some of the biggest mandates in the market, most recently advising on substantial real estate projects. He is also a noted practitioner in the dispute resolution arena.

Legal director Unana Gogokhia focuses on financial transactions, and stands out for her experience of capi-tal markets and derivatives. Clients appreciate her ability to “look at the issue very scrupulously and bring up points in the transaction that none of the other parties spotted.”

Sandro Bibilashvili is increasingly recognised in the market. He is involved in some of the firm’s biggest project finance mandates and has recently been active working on energy projects.

Counsel Tamara Tevdoradze enters the rankings on the back of positive praise. “She is very reliable, accu-rate and punctual, thinks in a very logical way and has very strong arguments,” a client says. Her broad practice includes real estate, tax and employment.

Band 1

BLC Law Office

Eminent practitioner Alexander Bolkvadze enjoys a good reputation for his long track record in some of the market’s biggest projects. His vast experience includes commercial, energy and real estate. Clients describe him as “pleasant, fast and always available.”

Ketti Kvartskhava climbs to the top tier of the rankings due to her superb reputation for advising on market-leading transactions. Clients describe her as “one of the best lawyers, of very high standards,” and add that she is “very sharp, extremely intelligent and focused.” Her broad practice includes M&A and financial transactions. She also stands out for her expertise in competition and is a well-respected litigator.

Clients say senior associate Tamta Ivanishvili is “very intelligent, monstrously detail-oriented and has an extraordinary appetite for hard work.” She receives strong feedback from all quarters and focuses on mandates covering corporate, financial, capital markets and M&A.

Giorgi Batlidze is recommended for his expertise in energy-related projects, with a client high-lighting his organisational skills and noting that “his experience in energy comes though.” He also handles IP, tax and financial matters, as well as M&A.

Band 1

Dentons Georgia

Eminent practitioner Ted Jonas is a US-qualified practitioner with a long-standing presence in the Georgian market. He is involved in a range of mandates and is particularly noted for his vast experience in advising foreign investors on financial transactions and capital markets expertise. 

Legal director Nino Suknidze has a strong reputation for her expertise in capital markets and reg-ularly advises on major transactions in the finance sector. Peers and clients alike praise her “posi-tive and co-operative” approach and say she can “listen very diligently and adapt, so that she can see both sides of the argument.”

According to clients, Avto Svanidze “stands out for his legal mindset and good knowledge of cor-porate law.” He enjoys a good reputation and is active in a number of high-end mandates, often advising on M&A, corporate, finance and contractual issues. He is dual-qualified in Georgia and the UK. 

Managing partner Otar Kipshidze handles energy, corporate and banking and finance matters. He has particular experience in advising on major infrastructure projects. He also heads the firm’s litigation practice.

Band 2

Business Legal Bureau

Managing partner Kakha Sharabidze is noted for his experience in cross-border work across a range of areas, including acquisitions, finance, corporate and real estate. “His knowledge of the law and experience really struck me,” a client reports. 

Senior associate Mariam Vashakidze is active on a wide range of general business matters. She is described as a “very thorough and very knowledgeable” lawyer who is also a good communicator.

Band 2

Dechert LLP

Nicola Mariani is an international lawyer who is admitted to the Bar in Paris, Québec and New York. He is particularly recommended for his M&A experience and also handles corporate mat-ters. Sources appreciate that he brings in “lots of experience, creativity, a very international look at the business and an excellent business network.”

Archil Giorgadze is noted by market commentators for his visibility on M&A deals. He also advis-es on a range of other issues, including corporate, commercial and project finance.

Band 2

Gvinadze & Partners LLC

Managing partner Nick Gvinadze is appreciated for his ability to “clearly explain potential issues and come up with practical solutions.” He maintains a broad general business law practice and regularly advises on projects in the energy and financial sectors.

Band 2

Mgaloblishvili Kipiani Dzidziguri (MKD)

Victor Kipiani is a very well-established name in the Georgian market and focuses on project fi-nance, capital markets and banking and finance work. Clients describe him as a “skilled lawyer and a truly reliable man” who is “highly resistant to stress” and provides “quick and detailed an-swers.”

Irakli Mgaloblishvili is a noted practitioner who has practical experience of advising clients on project finance and privatisation mandates. He is also skilled in dispute resolution.

Band 3

Nodia, Urumashvili and Partners Ltd

Efrem Urumashvili comes particularly recommended for his “precise knowledge of tax law,” “very flexible” approach and the ability to come up with solutions. He is also active on tax disputes. 

Band 4

Law Firm Begiashvili & Co. Ltd

Giorgi Begiashvili is an established figure in the market with a good reputation, advising on a host of business law matters. Market commentators recognise him for his banking M&A work and strong track record in commercial matters.

Band 4

Eristavi & Partners

Revaz Beridze is complimented as a “very responsible” lawyer and is renowned for his expertise in specialist areas such as maritime law. He also handles public procurement, commercial and transport matters.

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House Republicans voted Thursday to eviscerate much of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulations law, moving to wipe out one of President Obama’s signature accomplishments enacted to crack down on Wall Street in the wake of the 2008 crisis.

GOP leaders said the 2010 law backfired, imposing too many burdens on community banks while encouraging even greater market concentration in the big banks that Democrats blamed for the financial crash. Republicans also said the law didn’t do enough to prevent another market crash.

“This law may have had good intentions, but its consequences have been dire for Main Street,” said House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

The 233-186 vote fell essentially along party lines, with Democrats complaining that the GOP was pandering to major corporate donors.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where it is likely to face a Democratic filibuster, given the overwhelming Democratic opposition in the House.

“This is one of the worst bills I have seen in my time in Congress,” said Rep. Maxine Waters of California, ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. “This bill is a vehicle for Donald Trump’s agenda to deregulate and help out Wall Street.”

Along with Obamacare, Democrats tout Dodd-Frank — the bill’s shorthand named after its leading authors — as one of their signature legislative accomplishments when Mr. Obama had a Democratic-controlled House and Senate for the first two years of his presidency.

But the Thursday vote is another indication that much of that legacy could soon be wiped out by the Republican-controlled political branches.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Texas Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Dodd-Frank ended up being a series of broken promises.

“The big banks are bigger. The small banks are fewer,” he said. “We’re losing a community bank or credit union a day.”

The new bill allows banks that maintain certain levels of capital to opt out of other regulations, and nixes a provision, known as the Volcker rule, which curbs banks’ ability to use funds to engage in speculative trading.

The bill also repeals a provision in Dodd-Frank that calls on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve to issue recommendations when it comes to seizing and winding down major failing firms.

The legislation would instead set up a new bankruptcy process, with the goal of minimizing the risk of a taxpayer-funded bailout for “too big to fail” banks.

The legislation also reduces the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an independent agency set up under Dodd-Frank that has become ensnared in litigation over its scope and authority.

Republicans have been particularly outspoken in opposing the CFPB, saying too much power to pursue legal action against bad actors is vested in unelected officials, notably the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray.

The GOP bill allows the president to fire the CFPB director for any reason — an issue that’s currently the subject of litigation before the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

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The percentage of Chinese companies with U.S. operations that perceive bias in how Washington enforces rules and implements policies has dropped sharply from previous years, according to a survey of the firms released on Thursday.

However, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency government panel which reviews proposed takeovers of U.S. businesses by foreign entities on national security grounds, remains a concern for Chinese firms, according to the survey by the China General Chamber of Commerce and its affiliated CGCC Foundation.

A quarter of the 213 Chinese companies that responded to a questionnaire consider the CFIUS review to be politicized and opaque, the survey said.

Though CFIUS for most respondents does not appear to be a major investment barrier, its impact falls disproportionately on large covered transactions, those deals in which a foreign entity gains control of a U.S. listed company.

The perception about CFIUS can have long-term implications on bilateral business relations and reflect negatively on the long-standing U.S. policy of an open market, the survey said.

Chinese banks and companies must further their understanding of U.S. law and regulatory compliance, said Chen Xu, president of the U.S. unit of Bank of China and the CGCC chairman.

However, there is much distrust and misunderstanding about Chinese investment and of China in the U.S. market, Xu told reporters on Thursday.

While some Chinese firms perceived a bias in how the U.S. government enforces rules and implements policies, 65 percent did not encounter this, 23 percentage points higher from last year.

The survey found that the new administration of President Donald Trump has put China-U.S. relations, especially bilateral trade and investment, at a crossroads.

For example, 53 percent of respondents believe Washington will increase its regulatory oversight of Chinese investments. Deals involving Chinese companies will be subject to more frequent and stricter scrutiny, 63 percent of respondents said.

Only 25 percent of the surveyed companies expect tensions to rise and U.S.-Chinese relations to deteriorate in 2017 or in the near future. But 48 percent consider the added complexity to be a major challenge to their business, a significant increase – 18 percentage points – from last year.

Despite these views, many Chinese companies are thriving in a competitive U.S. market, the survey said.

More than half of the respondents said their revenues have increased every year since 2013, almost one-quarter said revenue grew more than 20 percent last year and the vast majority either maintained or increased their profit margins.

(Reporting by Herbert Lash; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Washington — Michigan lawmakers are playing lead roles in the debate over legislation to roll back major elements of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act in the U.S. House this week.

Rep. Bill Huizenga of Zeeland has helped lead the push to repeal parts of Dodd-Frank’s financial regulatory reforms as part of the Republican leadership on the House Financial Services Committee, and Rep. Dan Kildee of Flint Township has led the fight against the GOP bill as the panel’s vice ranking Democrat.

The 589-page Financial Choice Act passed out of the committee this spring on a party-line vote, following a 28-hour markup.

The bill would end the government’s authority to wind down large, failing financial firms; allow banks to opt out of enhanced capital requirements in certain cases; and scale back the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate large banks and payday and title lenders.

The legislation also would repeal what’s known as the Volcker Rule, which keeps government-insured banks from making risky trades with investments and owning hedge funds and private equity funds, which experts say led to massive losses during the financial crisis.

The House is expected to vote on the legislation Thursday. Republicans say it would provide a boost to the economy, freeing financial institutions from overbearing regulations.

Huizenga says the problem is that Dodd-Frank “has not acted as advertised.”

“It didn’t ultimately address the main driver of our economic downturn, which was a housing crisis,” said Huizenga, who chairs the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities and Investment that has jurisdiction over capital market matters.

“In many ways, it was a social agenda waiting for a crisis. That’s why all of our automotive folks are dealing with issues like conflict minerals and CEO-pay ratios — all these things that had nothing to do with our economic downturn at all.”

Kildee has nicknamed the bill the “Wrong Choice Act,” saying that Republicans seem to have forgotten the pain of the housing meltdown that led to the adoption of Dodd-Frank in 2010.

“The heart and soul of this is to basically take us back to the same kind of financial and regulatory environment that was in place before the financial crisis,” Kildee said. “For the Democrats on the committee, we’re just not going there.”

Democrats are especially concerned about changes proposed for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency that says it has returned almost $12 billion to customers who’ve been cheated by financial institutions.

“It is the cop on the beat that polices all sorts of nefarious activity that can take place between financial institutions and customers that are the subjects of unfair or deceptive practices,” Kildee said.

Republicans argue the bureau is unaccountable. They want to replace the director with a bipartisan governing board and make its funding dependent on congressional appropriations, so Congress may choose to fund it (or not).

“But the argument for the independence of the CFPB is to not be subject to the political pressures and for the director not be able to be fired by a president,” Kildee said.

Michael Barr, who was the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the U.S. Treasury for two years during the Obama administration and was an architect of Dodd-Frank, said the law’s opponents are trying to gut it.

“It would basically resurrect the problem of ‘too big to fail.’ You had these major firms that in the lead-up to the crisis there was no way to deal with them. The government had two choices, both of which were disastrous for the country: They could bail them out, as they did with AIG, or send them into bankruptcy, as they did with Lehman Brothers” Barr said.

“It’s as if this massive cloud of amnesia has descended on some in Washington, and they’ve forgotten all about the causes and consequences of the financial crisis.”

But others, like Cornell Law School professor Charles K. Whitehead, who testified before the Financial Services panel in March, said parts of Dodd-Frank like the Volcker Rule address the “wrong problem in the wrong way.”

“I believe it’s fair to say that the rule’s proponents were less interested in curing a particular cause of the financial crisis and more interested in championing the view that commercial banking should be separated from investment banking,” Whitehead said.

“Changes in the financial markets spurred by the Volcker Rule still expose banks to the kinds of risks that the Volcker Rule was intended to minimize or eliminate.”

Observers say the bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Republicans need 60 votes to pass the legislation and will face opposition from Democrats such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who conceived the idea for the bureau before joining Congress.

“Some senators from the upper Northeast who had a hand in creating Dodd-Frank and CFPB have staked out the territory that any changes to Dodd-Frank are bad for consumers and somehow breaching the citadel of consumer protection and safety of the economy,” Huizenga said.

“That’s nonsensical. You’ve got broad consensus that there are issues within Dodd-Frank that are simply not working and need to be addressed.”

mburke@detroitnews.com

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The European Union wants to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to get electronic evidence directly from tech companies like Facebook and Google even when stored in another European country.

In the wake of the deadly Islamist-inspired attacks in Europe over the past two years, tech companies have come under increased pressure to do more to help police investigations, and law enforcement officials have bemoaned the slow process required to access data stored in the cloud in other EU member states.

The European Commission will present three options to EU ministers which will form the basis of a future legislative proposal, including the possibility for police to copy data directly from the cloud, EU justice commissioner Vera Jourova said.

“I am sure that now in the shadow of the recent terrorist attacks and increasing threats in Europe there will be more understanding among the ministers, even among those who come from countries where there has not been a terrorist attack,” she said.

EU justice ministers meet in Brussels today and will discuss the Commission’s options. Based on their preferences, the EU executive will then come forward with a proposal by the end of the year or early 2018, Jourova said.

The least intrusive option involves allowing law enforcement authorities in one member state to ask an IT provider in another member state to turn over electronic evidence, without having to ask that member state first.

The second option would see the companies obliged to turn over data if requested by law enforcement authorities in other member countries.

As an example, police in Italy seeking electronic evidence stored in Ireland would currently have to ask the Irish authorities to retrieve the evidence for them, a process critics say is slow and cumbersome.

However, many in the tech community have voiced concern about allowing governments to force companies to turn over data stored in another country, fearing it could erode customers’ privacy and make them less likely to use cloud services if they thought the data could be seized.

Microsoft fought and won a high-profile battle in the United States against the Department of Justice’s request that it turn over emails stored on a server in Ireland.

The Commission weighed in for Microsoft in that case, saying data held by companies in the EU should not be directly accessed by foreign authorities outside formal channels of cooperation.

The most intrusive option being considered by the EU could be envisaged in situations where authorities do not know the location of the server hosting the data or there is a risk of the data being lost, Jourova said.

“This third option is kind of an emergency possibility which will require some additional safeguards protecting the privacy of people,” she said.

Such safeguards include requiring that law enforcement requests are necessary and proportionate.

“You simply cannot massively collect some digital data for some future use,” Jourova said.

The types of data that could fall within the scope of the law will also be discussed today, with options ranging from non-content data such as location or traffic data to personal communications data.

“My preference is to go for this as an extraordinary measure for extraordinary threats, for high gravity criminal offences such as terrorism and there I am in favour of enabling the use of personal data,” Jourova said, adding that no decision has yet been taken.

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(c) 2017, The Washington Post.

A new deal between the U.S. and Mexico on sugar exports may have averted a costly trade war. But it’s also sparked a fierce battle between the Trump administration and some of America’s largest food companies, who claim Tuesday’s agreement will harm their businesses and ratchet up food costs for consumers.

Under the preliminary agreement, Mexico will accept a new minimum price for the sugar it sells to the U.S. and restrict the amount of refined sugar it exports, measures that will maintain high sugar prices for domestic producers.

But while those concessions were immediately celebrated as a victory for the U.S. – and for U.S. sugarcane and sugar beet farmers, in particular – it’s been panned by representatives of the processed food, confectionery and soda industries, who have long fought federal protections of domestic sugar.

The dispute pits some of America’s largest food companies against one of its most powerful agricultural lobbies – and against the Trump administration itself. In doing so, it also exposes a central paradox in President Trump’s aggressive, “America first” trade approach: Any policy that benefits some U.S. firms will also, inevitably, hurt others.

“Today’s announcement is a bad deal for hardworking Americans and exemplifies the worst form of crony capitalism,” said the Coalition for Sugar Reform – which represents Coca-Cola, Nestle, Kraft Heinz and hundreds of other food companies – in an incendiary statement. “U.S. sugar policy should empower America’s food and beverage companies to create more jobs, not put hundreds of thousands of good-paying U.S. jobs at risk just to benefit one small interest group.”

From the food industry’s perspective, this agreement – and the controversial U.S. sugar-support policy that it represents – artificially inflates U.S. sugar prices to points far above the world market. According to the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, which measures price according to futures contracts, the world price for both raw and refined sugar is lower than the respective U.S. raw and refined sugar prices.

That is no accident, economists say: Since 1981, the U.S. government has guaranteed a minimum price for U.S. sugar through a system of quotas, buy-backs and price-support loans. Restrictions on imports are key to the program, as any increase in cheap foreign sugar could cause prices to drop below the guaranteed minimum for U.S. producers.

Facing such a situation in 2013 and 2014, the U.S. and Mexico agreed to a deal that set minimum prices for Mexican sugar and limited the amounts of both raw and refined sugar it could sell into the U.S.

Tuesday’s agreement is an extension of that deal, and will increase both the import limits and the minimum prices. That will have the practical effect of maintaining sugar prices for U.S. farmers and refiners said Phillip Hayes, a spokesman for the American Sugar Alliance. He characterizes the agreement as a “law enforcement issue” that was needed to protect U.S. producers from Mexican dumping.

“Hawaii’s sugar industry shut down last December because of the uncertain market,” Hayes said. “That was largely driven by Mexico’s predatory trade practices.”

But higher sugar prices also come with costs – not to farmers, but to companies that use sugar in their products. Higher ingredient costs cut into manufacturers’ margins, which has prompted several to relocate outside of the U.S.

The makers of Life Savers, Dums Dums and Jelly Belly beans have all opened factories overseas, citing the high cost of American sugar. It was implicated in the closure of a Chicago Nabisco plant last summer, which resulted in the layoff of 600 people.

“From a jobs perspective, there are 600,000 people working in the sugar-using industry,” said Rick Tasco, the president of the Sweetener Users Association, which represents manufacturers. “The sugar-processing sector only employs 18,000 people.”

Consumers also appear to purchase fewer sugar-sweetened goods when sugar prices are up. A 2011 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission found that liberalizing America’s sugar trade policies would give the economy a $49 million boost, largely in the form of increased food sales.

That same year, the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, calculated the consumer cost of higher sugar prices at almost $3 billion a year.

“That’s a cost of between $10 and $11 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.,” said Robert Kudrle, a professor of international trade policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s why U.S. sugar policy is used in textbooks to illustrate the political economy of protectionism. A very small group of people have managed to get public policy to favor them – basically by taxing the rest of the population.”

The sugar industry vehemently disputes these claims, and disagrees that trade restrictions like those announced Tuesday have any impact on consumer prices. It points out that food companies rarely pass on savings to consumers: Candy bars did not suddenly get cheaper in 2013, for instance, when U.S. sugar prices plummeted.

But the Sugar Reform Coalition has promised to press its case on the issue — even if the preliminary deal with Mexico is approved. The organization has the support of a number of prominent food industry trade associations, as well as a bipartisan group of lawmakers who in May asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to liberalize U.S. policy on Mexican sugar.

A number of food companies, including Coca-Cola, Cargill, and corn syrup maker Archer Daniels Midland, also met with the White House’s agricultural advisor, Ray Starling, to lobby against the sugar industry in May, according to Reuters.

But while those campaigns appear to have failed, the food industry will have another chance to address sugar trade soon. The issue has historically drawn extra attention around the Farm Bill, which is due for a 2018 renewal.

The Sugar Reform Coalition is already asking lawmakers to push for reforms in those negotiations.

Tuesday’s agreement “[solidifies] that it’s time for Congress to shoulder the responsibility of fixing this broken program,” the group said in a statement.

sugar

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