Amanda L. Wetzel

How Amanda Helps Clients

Amanda focuses her practice on commercial litigation, trade remedies litigation and energy and environmental litigation. She has more than 15 years of legal experience gained through practice in the United States and France.

In her international trade practice, she litigates antidumping and countervailing duties cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Court of International Trade.  Her compliance practice focuses on anti-corruption law and economic sanctions. In the environmental area, she litigates matters in state and federal court and has focused her thought leadership on issues involving PFAS regulations.  

Prior to joining Buchanan, Amanda developed her U.S. litigation skills at law firms in New York City. Amanda also practiced law for four years in Paris, where she was a member of the Paris bar and litigated before the French domestic courts and international arbitral tribunals.  In her positions in New York and Paris, Amanda gained experience in white collar criminal defense, commercial litigation and international arbitration.  Amanda is particularly well equipped to work with European companies on their U.S. litigation and compliance needs.

Amanda completed clerkships in the United States and Europe. She was the Dean Acheson legal stage at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and served as a law clerk for Judge Rosemary Barkett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. 

Amanda’s early career also included long-term public interest fellowships during which she worked on several significant litigations before the European Court of Human Rights and worked on treaty law in the United States Senate.  Amanda’s current public service activities include service on the Board of Visitors of the Penn State Department of Political Science.

What Clients Can Expect

Amanda always works to achieve the best results for clients in line with their overall business or personal objectives. Amanda has strong attention to detail when providing legal advice yet never loses sight of the client’s big-picture goals.

Amanda offers French clients doing business in the United States and American clients considering their European legal obligations an in-depth understanding of the legal and regulatory environment in both the United States and France.   

Outside the Office

Amanda enjoys attending classical music events in Philadelphia and playing the oboe. She also enjoys her involvement in the U.S.-Ireland Alliance and in Franco-American affairs.

Proof Points

Commercial Litigation, International Trade, and Arbitration

• Represents U.S. manufacturers from a variety of industries, including critical minerals, chemicals, and the steel industry, in all phases of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
• Represents U.S. manufacturers in sunset reviews of antidumping orders before the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
• Represents clients in litigation before the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
• Representation of a defendant in a CERCLA environmental litigation in a U.S. District Court.
• Representations of clients in commercial litigation, environmental litigation, and higher education matters in the Pennsylvania state courts.
• Representations of clients in litigations in the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court.
• Representations, while working in France, of a sovereign state in an International Chamber of Commerce commercial arbitration, of a client in an investor-state arbitration, and of an American Fortune 500 company in commercial litigation in a French court.

Economic Sanctions Advising, Anti-Corruption Advising, and Criminal and Regulatory Defense

• Advise companies and other organizations on compliance with U.S. and international economic sanctions and anti-corruption laws.
• Representation of a criminal defendant in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on issues related to extradition treaty law.
• Representation of a defendant in a multi-defendant criminal securities fraud case that resulted in his full acquittal following a trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
• Representation of a broker-dealer in a SEC enforcement litigation in a U.S. District Court in which the SEC’s complaint was dismissed.
• Representation of a former executive in a multi-defendant insider trading case in France in which the French Constitutional Council held that key elements of the French insider trading law were unconstitutional.