Background
Trade-India (T-India), based in Goa, is an international trading corporation engaged in the trading of various forms of metal scrap and is also a supplier of high quality steel to mills and foundries throughout the world. After building successful operations that spanned the globe, T-India wanted to establish operations in the U.S. in order to source scrap metal from the U.S. T-India owners surmised that a physical presence in U.S. would significantly enhance their profitability, while strengthening their credibility and reputation among international buyers. Having an entity in the U.S. would also facilitate their expansion into other sectors effectively.
Setting Up A U.S. Affiliate
When T-India approached Start Business In America detailing its plans and seeking assistance, our team analyzed the company's situation. First, our team helped T-India incorporate a U.S. entity, Trade–USA (T-USA). While incorporating the U.S. entity, our experts made sure that T-India and T-USA would be "affiliates" so as to facilitate the transfer of employees from T-India to T-USA on the L-1 visa. Our experts also helped T-USA secure an office premises and complete preliminary formalities to bring T-USA into existence.
The Challenges
With T-USA having been established as an affiliate of T-India in the U.S., the next task before T-USA was to ensure the successful transfer of an identified employee from T-India to T-USA in order to start up operations. Our attorneys decided that a New Office L-1 would be the appropriate visa category that would enable T-USA to accomplish their desired goals. The company decided that the Senior Vice-President – International Business Development of T-India should be transferred to T-USA to act as Chief Operations Officer (COO) on a New Office L-1. However, successfully obtaining a New Office L-1 for the identified T-India employee, in this situation, brought up many challenges.
To be eligible to seek an L-1A visa, the employee being transferred must have been engaged as an Executive or Manager in the overseas entity for a period of at least one year out of the past 3 years. And, generally, USCIS utilizes the number of people reporting to the beneficiary, as demonstrated by the organizational structure, in establishing the executive or managerial nature of the duties carried on by the beneficiary. Companies engaged in trading typically are not manpower intensive and hence face challenges with immigration, especially for the transfer of executives/managers. This necessitates special analysis and strategic planning to address these matters in the petition filing. Hence, establishing the executive or managerial nature of the identified T-India employee's role became a significant challenge to overcome. And, this was in addition to all the "normal" challenges inherent in the L-1 visa process.
Transferring T-India's Sr. Vice-President To U.S. As T-USA's COO
Having identified the various challenges that T-USA faced in this situation, our legal team set out to assist T-USA and T-India to successfully overcome them and obtain approval for transfer of T-India's Sr. Vice-President in India to the U.S. to assume the role of COO at T-USA. Our experienced attorneys skillfully prepared the petition, stressing how, by the nature of the business carried on by T-USA and T-India, the number of professionals employed by them were bound to be limited, and demonstrating clearly that notwithstanding the limited number of professionals employed by T-India, the Senior Vice-President's role was executive in nature.
Start Business In America's comprehensive application, which was prepared addressing every anticipated query, resulted in T-India's Senior Vice-President being successfully granted a New Office L-1 visa so that he could travel to the U.S. to assume the role as COO at T-USA, and set-up and manage T-USA's operations.
Obtaining An Extension of Stay For T-USA's COO
The New Office L-1 visa enables a foreign national transferee to come to the U.S. for a period of one year to set-up new operations in the U.S. of a related foreign company or branch office. In order to seek an extension of stay beyond the first year, the petitioner must establish that the U.S. operations continue to be active and have grown to a size that justifies the continued presence of the overseas Executive or Manager to manage the U.S. operations.
When the one-year period of stay granted to T-USA's Indian COO under the New Office L-1 was nearing completion, T-USA wanted to have him continue in the U.S. as it's COO as it was a senior level executive position which required the incumbent to have significant executive experience as well as advanced knowledge of the company's organizational processes, business procedures and marketing operations. Though T-USA had developed substantial business and revenues to show that its operations had commenced and were growing profitably, it once again faced the challenge of establishing that the nature of duties discharged and functions carried out by the COO would be managerial and executive in nature, given that the company did not require many professional employees. Our experienced attorneys, once again, successfully assisted T-USA in compiling a comprehensive request seeking an extension that convincingly addressed all queries, enabling T-USA's COO to obtain an extension of stay on L-1 visa and stay in the U.S. to manage and guide T-USA's operations towards further growth.
Conclusion
Thus, an overseas trading company was successfully able to overcome peculiar challenges that came its way and realized a lucrative opportunity in establishing profitable operations in the U.S. And, we at Start Business In America, are happy that we assisted them effectively in their journey towards accomplishment of identified goals.
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