BACKGROUND

• Conan Grames is a founding Principal of the Firm which provides a full spectrum of legal and business consulting services for international companies both doing business in the United States as well as US companies trading or investing abroad. Grames provides legal services in all types of international transactions, contract negotiations, and management of other legal services.
• He has assisted companies in doing business in over 70 countries and is well-connected with lawyers and associates worldwide.
• Grames is fluent in Japanese, having lived in Japan for 20 years on both legal and volunteer assignments. He has represented many Japanese companies doing business in the United States and companies of all kinds doing business in Japan.
• In addition to his legal experience, Conan has extensive experience in public and government affairs issues in the United States and Japan.

EXPERIENCE

• Grames was hired by the Tokyo office of Baker & McKenzie, where he represented several major corporations such as McDonald’s, and Levi’s, and pioneered the legal foundation for Amway and other direct marketing businesses in Japan.
• He worked on projects for entertainers, athletes, and non-profit organizations such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This work included all the foreign investment, trade, international tax, and virtually all legal issues required by such organizations and individuals. Grames became the youngest partner in the worldwide firm after five years and the senior American lawyer in the Tokyo office.
• Grames was later recruited by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to supervise legal matters in the Asia-Pacific region and later became Senior Vice President and Chief Counsel for all the general legal affairs of the entire international business of the company, working closely with IP, tax, M&A, HR, PR, and other specialists for all the subsidiaries of BMS in over 70 countries. The company’s business included ethical and OTC pharmaceuticals, nutritionals products, medical devices, other medical and dental equipment, and consumer products.
• This experience led Grames to become General Counsel at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the trade association representing the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world in Washington, D.C. At PhRMA, Grames provided legal direction and analysis to PhRMA member companies on national and international, regulatory, intellectual property, and other biopharmaceutical issues.
• Grames has worked at other law firms and non-profit organizations which have provided him with significant public, media and government affairs skills (including this experience in Japan), crisis management know-how, humanitarian relief knowledge, and organizational leadership experience.

PRACTICE

• Kevin Cunningham’s law and business practice consists in planning and implementing U.S. (and outside the U.S.), business activities & international business with a specialty in the pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical devices, and nutritionals industries. He provides industry, law, and business counseling, advice, and assistance to United States domestic and non-US integrated and specialty companies.
• Kevin Cunningham is a senior lawyer with experience in more than 30 countries dealing with domestic, international, and transnational matters – working as in-house counsel with Chevron and Bristol-Myers Squibb as well as in major law firms.
• Cunningham has been a member of the Institutional Review Board of the Penn Medicine Princeton HealthCare System. He addressed the United States-Japan Healthcare Study Group of JETRO (the Japan External Trade Association in New York), and has judged in the Jessup International Moot Court Competition.
• Mr. Cunningham has provided legal assistance in Austral-Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East with U.S. and non-U.S. domestic law matters, international transactions (both in-coming and out-going from the United States), and transactions between non-U.S. countries.
• He carried out an international corporate investigation for MONY Life; and assisted Assurant, Inc., in terminating bank/insurance company ventures in Brazil.
• Cunningham was Senior Counsel and Vice President of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. His responsibilities included counseling in most legal areas for international and non-US in-country law work in many countries for the following divisions: ethical and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals; ConVatec (its medical device company); Mead Johnson Nutritionals; and Worldwide Beauty Care (Clairol). Those clients had sales of over US$2 billion in Europe, Iberia, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and the Pacific Rim. He supervised 7 in-house lawyers in several countries and controlled an outside counsel budget of over US $1 million for more than 25 countries.
• Prior to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mr. Cunningham was international and domestic Counsel to Gulf Oil/ Chevron in Houston; an Associate at Morgan Lewis & Bockius in Washington, D.C.; and Law Clerk to a US Federal District Judge.
• Mr. Cunningham has lived in Latin America. He is fluent in English and Spanish and familiar with Portuguese and Italian. He has taught at Princeton, Rice, Georgetown, and Columbia Universities.