Pro Bono | Americas

PPE ASAP

A team worked around the clock – quite literally, in Beijing, and Washington, D.C. – on a mission to deliver nearly 1.7 million N95 masks on the New England Patriots' team plane. We represented The Kraft Group, owner of the New England Patriots, in overcoming a number of obstacles so the NFL team could use its private jet to transport the vital protective gear from Shenzhen, China, to the United States for use in health care facilities in Massachusetts and New York. The masks arrived less than 24 hours before the Massachusetts facilities were scheduled to exhaust their existing supply.

Our cross-office, cross-practice team navigated the complex array of authorizations and inter-governmental support requests in the United States and China needed for the plane to go to China, collect the masks in Shenzhen, and then fly them back through Alaska, where they were cleared through U.S. Customs.

Kraft Chairman and CEO, Robert Kraft, said: "Hogan Lovells was an absolutely invaluable member of our team effort in this humanitarian mission … [They] tore through the bureaucracy with their knowledge and skill around international trade and truly worked 24/7 to make sure this mission was accomplished. I am so thankful for their work in supporting the front-line defenders of the public's health and safety …"

Kraft donated 300,000 masks from this delivery to Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state of New York. The masks were transported by truck to New York City escorted by the Massachusetts National Guard, the Rhode Island National Guard, and the New York National Guard in a show of solidarity among states in fighting the pandemic.

Read the press release.

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