We have a strong record of success working with global businesses that relocate operations to South Carolina, having advised companies with bases of operations in:

• Europe (Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Serbia/Montenegro, Switzerland, the United Kingdom)
• Asia/Pacific (China, India, Japan, Korea, Philippines)
• Africa/Middle East (Nigeria, Lebanon)
• North America (Canada, Panama)

McNair understands the political and business factors involved in establishing effective development incentives, and knows how to help all parties involved achieve their economic objectives.

Example of our Services
In the early 1990s Governor McNair, while a member of a state delegation that traveled to Europe to help boost South Carolina’s international trade, met with the owners of a small German manufacturer. The company had purchased a business that produced truck rear-view mirrors and was looking to relocate it. Governor McNair advocated for South Carolina’s economic development incentives, and our firm subsequently negotiated with state and county economic development officials to secure financing and other incentives to bring the operation here.

Our client opened its new South Carolina facility in 1994 with five people. Today, after relying on the McNair firm for help with incentives, international financing, tax guidance and licensing, our client employs 300 people at a 160,000 square foot plant that has achieved a position of global leadership in its industry. And we continue to help them expand globally by establishing new operations in Brazil and Mexico.

As a full-service business law firm, McNair can provide legal services for the regulatory complexities that foreign-based businesses face. International trade is one example.

McNair lawyers also take a global focus to help employers secure the services of highly skilled foreign nationals, including engineers, scientists, researchers, professors, doctors, statisticians and executives. We understand the needs of employers who employ multinational personnel in industries such as food service, education, manufacturing, technology and health care.

Example of our Services
Although we counsel major multinationals like one of the world’s leading film and imaging corporations (which has one of its largest facilities in South Carolina, where several of our lawyers have served as General Counsel), McNair provides guidance that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses find success in the global economy. In the mid-1990s, we began advising a former military logistics officer on his development of a company to help military operations worldwide outsource food, laundry and other services. As his business grew, we assisted with forming foreign business entities (such as a cement company in Russia), drafting international contracts and employment agreements, and creating tax-efficient foreign payroll structures.

Our client has done business from Iraq and Afghanistan to any other country where military service outsourcing could be done – and McNair’s lawyers have provided the counsel and service that helped his business grow.

McNair can help you with your cross-border transactional requirements. As the only South Carolina member of TerraLex (a leading global network of 160 law firms with 15,000 lawyers based in 100 countries), we have access to quality local counsel in every part of the world. Our own lawyers regularly deal with such international business needs as transfer pricing analysis, the establishment of tax-efficient offshore payroll companies, and cross-border acquisitions and licensing agreements. We also regularly work with cross-border leasing and financing arrangements, particularly as our manufacturing clients establish new production operations in Canada, Mexico and Latin America.

Example of our Services
In a transaction that illustrates both the global nature of today’s business and McNair’s commitment to personal service, we represented a business owner in the time-sensitive sale of his company. When a buyer based in Great Britain emerged, the future of the deal, and the company, hinged on closing the sale within six days. Because our client was on vacation in Nassau, several McNair lawyers made a hurried trip to the island and negotiated the multi-million dollar transaction using laptops and wireless Internet connections.