Brandon Custard has more than a dozen years of experience in antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations, administrative reviews, changed circumstance reviews, new shipper reviews, anti-circumvention inquiries and scope rulings.

Prior to joining Akin Gump, Brandon was a senior attorney at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of the Chief Counsel for Trade Enforcement and Compliance. In this role, he defended determinations by the Department of Commerce before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, U.S. Court of International Trade, World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement Binational Panel. His case experience involved chemical, biochemical, food, steel, aluminum, metals, paper and consumer product industries, among others. Additionally, Brandon drafted regulatory text related to steel and aluminum imports, and Administrative Protective Order procedures and service requirements in AD and CVD proceedings.

Brandon served for nine years as an international trade compliance analyst at the International Trade Administration, where he was responsible for all aspects of international trade investigations and administrative reviews, including initiating proceedings, on-site company verifications, margin calculations, preliminary and final determinations and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) instructions.

He also worked for five years as an honors paralegal at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in the Office of Immigration Litigation, actively assisting in robust, fast-moving litigation and contributing to the department’s Immigration Litigation Bulletin.

While in law school, Brandon was a member of The Federal Circuit Bar Journal.