Sheldon E. Hochberg joined Steptoe's Washington office as a partner in 1991, where he is a member of the International Department. He has significant experience in international and administrative law. Prior to joining Steptoe, he was a partner with a boutique Washington firm and had earlier served as an attorney-adviser with the Office of the Legal Adviser for Economic Affairs of the US Department of State.
International Law
Mr. Hochberg has extensive experience in international trade disputes. While at the Department of State, he worked on international trade and commodity issues and represented the United States in an arbitration against Brazil under the International Coffee Agreement. From 1983 through 1987, he represented a major oil company in an ad hoc arbitration in Paris against Libya that involved claims of expropriation and breach of contract in connection with the company's former concessions in that country.
Since joining Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Mr. Hochberg has been actively involved in international trade and, particularly, countervailing duty matters. He participated in the Canadian softwood lumber proceeding, and since 1992 has handled two major steel cases that involved a number of cutting-edge countervail issues, including the effects of the privatization of a company or its productive facilities on the countervailability of pre-privatization subsidies and the methodologies for the treatment of capital subsidies. In connection with these representations, Mr. Hochberg played a lead role in the oral arguments in these cases at the Department of Commerce and before the Court of International Trade and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In 2008-09 Mr. Hochberg was lead counsel in the petition for certiorari and merits briefing in the only antidumping case ever decided by the United States Supreme Court. In that case, the Court ruled 9-0 in favor of his client’s position that certain transactions involving imports of enriched uranium constituted sales of goods subject to the antidumping law. He then was lead counsel in the negotiations that settled more than eight years of contentious trade litigation in the case.
Administrative Law
Mr. Hochberg has been actively involved in administrative and legislative matters throughout his career and has written on the standards for judicial review of agency decisions.
For over thirty years, he has represented national and state trade associations and individual insurers in the title insurance industry on a wide variety of federal and state regulatory, legislative and litigation matters. These matters have included issues relating to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), bank involvement in the insurance agency and underwriting business, Indian land claims, antitrust litigation involving rating bureaus and when products or services constitute insurance. Mr. Hochberg was lead counsel in litigation in the DC and Second Circuits involving national bank and bank holding company activities in the insurance area. He is a frequent speaker at insurance industry and bar association seminars on RESPA, controlled business, and banking and insurance issues.
Mr. Hochberg has also advised insurance trade associations and service organizations on matters relating to the operation of industry databases, the provision of reference information on agents and employees, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the law of privacy.
Mr. Hochberg has been involved in rulemaking and informal adjudicative proceedings involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the Federal Trade Commission, and other federal agencies. He has also provided counsel in several major legislative initiatives, including legislation to reverse Supreme Court decisions in the antitrust area, real estate and banking legislation, Indian land claims legislation, and legislation to reorganize the Penn Central.
