Frank A. Orban, III has been engaged in the fields of international law, business, and diplomacy since 1968.  His legal experience covers a wide range of transactional, investment, foreign trade, customs, export controls, and licensing law areas relating to the United States; Western and Central Europe, including the Balkans; China; and the former Soviet Union. 

Mr. Orban has held senior legal positions in U.S. and foreign multinational corporations, including General Counsel of Rupert Murdoch’s European holding company, News International plc, London, and International Counsel at Armstrong World Industries.  He was also Managing Director for Continental European operations for Satra Corporation, a leading East-West international trading firm.  He served in the U.S. Peace Corps as Assistant Attorney General of the Kingdom of Swaziland.  In addition, he was appointed by the Reagan Administration to a senior diplomatic post as one of the American negotiators in the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Arms and Space Talks in Geneva.  More recently, Mr. Orban, on leave from legal practice, became the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of The Institute of World Politics, a Washington-based graduate school of foreign policy and national security affairs.  Earlier in his career Mr. Orban was a lecturer in comparative and international law at the University of Virginia Law School.  Mr. Orban has handled complex trade and investment transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars in China and the CIS.  He has also handled a range of international commercial arbitrations as well as customs, export control, and related matters.

As a recognized expert on China, the Balkans, and the CIS, he has lectured and written extensively and has served as an advisor to the U.S. and foreign governments on various foreign trade, investment, development, and other legal issues.

He is currently a Vice President, General Counsel, and Director of the U.S.-Serbia Business Council and a Board Member of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, Washington, DC.  He is also a former member of the U.S. State Department's Private International Law Advisory Committee, the Trade Policy Committee of the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers, the Institute of Strategic Studies, London and the Board of the American Corporate Counsel Association as well as founder and the chair of its International Legal Affairs Committee.  Recent speaking engagements include the 2008 meeting of the 2008 U.S.-Russian Mid-Atlantic Business Council and the November 2008 meeting of the English Speaking Union in the U.K.  Additionally, he has participated over the years in numerous other professional meetings, seminars, and university lectures, speaking on a variety of international legal, trade, and foreign policy subjects. His foreign languages include German, Russian, Spanish, and French.

Recent articles by Mr. Orban include Legal Globalization: The Challenges for In-House Counsel, ACCA Docket 19, no. 2; and International Legal Malpractice in a Global Economy:  A Growing Phenomenon, International Legal Practitioner, Vol. 29 No. 2.

Mr. Orban’s Legal Publications and Presentations

Selected Articles

International Legal Malpractice in a Global Economy: A Growing Phenomenon, International Legal practitioner, Vol. 29 No. 2 (July 2004).

Legal Globalization: The Challenges for In-House Counsel, The Docket, Association of Corporate Counsel Journal, 19, No. 2 (Feb. 2001).

Product Liability: A Comparative Legal Study, University of Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law (1978).

Socialist Arbitral Awards, University of Virginia Journal of International Law (Spring 1977).

Product Liability - World Trends, New Law Bulletin (Tokyo, 1977).

Helping Lawyers Deliver, New Directions (1976). 

Law Revision in Africa, East African Law Review (Nairobi , 1971).

Other Publications

Statutes of Swaziland (6 volumes) Mbabane, Kingdom of Swaziland (law reviser).

U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration Insurance and Indemnification (1979) (project director).

K.W. Fischer, ed., Maritime Product Liability Law, (Nov. 1979) (contributor).

Product Liability–Law and Policy (7-volume study for the White House Interagency Task Force on Product Liability and U.S. Department of Commerce) (Washington, D.C. 1977) (project director and editor-in-chief).

Lectures, Speeches, and Testimony

Recent Presentations

Investing in Russia – Legal Challenges U.S.-Russian Mid-Atlantic Business Council, State College, PA (May 2008).

Review of U.S. Socio-Political Developments, Annual Dinner of the English Speaking Union, Bath, England (2007 & 2008).

Taking Advantage of and Being Taken Advantage of in the Chinese Market - Exporting, Investing, and IP Protection in Contemporary China , US Patent & Trademark Office Conference on Protecting Intellectual Property in China & the Global Market Place, Philadelphia, PA (2007).

Doing Business in China Yesterday and Today, Pennsylvania Department of Commerce & World Trade Center Conference on Doing Business in China (2007).

Other Lectures

Shanghai Municipal Government Executive Training Program (annually 1998 to Present).

American Corporate Counsel Association Annual Conventions (Washington – various years).

Ernst & Young Conference on Doing Business in P.R. China ( Philadelphia ).

International Sales & Marketing Executives Annual conference, Syracuse, NY

International Insurance Conference, Zurich

Bureau of National Affairs International Conference on Consumer Protection

Management Centre Europe (Counterpart of the American Management Association), Brussels – numerous conferences on international law and business – various years

American Trial Lawyers Association Convention, Monte Carlo – European Civil Law litigation themes.

U.S. Maritime Industry Conference, New York and New Orleans.

First World Congress on Product Liability, London.

Australian Government, Department of Trade & Industry and Commercial Law Society of Australia Conference, Sydney.

John Bassett More Lecture in International Law, University of Virginia Law School .

Sokol Symposium on International Arbitration, University of Virginia Law School .

Sokol Symposium on Proof of Foreign and International Law, University of Virginia Law School .

Federation of the Japanese Bar Association, Tokyo .

Chamber of Commerce, Osaka , Japan .

Transnational Management Conference on European Legal Developments, Miami .

Various public diplomacy talks for U.S. Information Agency in US and Europe on US-Soviet Arms Control 1987-89

Various talks on East-West trade (USSR , Russia , Central Europe ) in US and abroad.

Lectures at various universities and Colleges, including Franklin & Marshall, Dickinson Law School, University of Geneva, Millersville University, etc.

Testimony

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (April 4, 1984).

U.S. House of Representatives committee on Small Business, Sub-Committee on Capital Investment and Business Opportunities (July 18, 1977).

Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Committee on Insurance (Fall 1979).

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