Registration and Networking Breakfast

Co-Chairs’ Opening Remarks

No Longer Business as Usual: (What) a Year in Review

Kick off this year’s conference with a frank conversation on how the recent, truly seismic geopolitical developments affect global fraud litigation and asset recovery landscape. Speakers will share their personal predictions and insights for the future, and solicit audience feedback along the way

• The FCPA expectations under the Trump administration
  • New enforcement and continuation of existing actions
  • The nature and extent of settlements
  • Cooperation with foreign authorities
  • Use of monitorships
  • The whistleblower program
  • Individual prosecutions
  • The FCPA Pilot Program
• What effect has Brexit had on the activity of UK financial crime regulators?
• What is the future for deferred prosecution agreements and self-reporting?
• What does Brexit mean for cross border cooperation among regulators, and lawyers?
• Effectively responding to the increased level of international collaboration to combat cross-border corruption schemes
•  The latest updates from Switzerland on:
  •  Enforcement tools and practice of the prosecuting authorities
  •  Self-reporting, co-operation with domestic enforcement agencies
  • Do’s and don’ts in cross borders investigations

Networking and Refreshments Sponsored by

Latin America Corruption Update

• Overview of Developments in Major Corruption Cases in LATAM in the past year
• Corporate liability (civil or criminal) including new relevant legislation in LATAM
• The proliferation of leniency agreements and other forms of cooperation with the authorities in exchange of reduced penalties
• Developments in international cooperation for massive cross-border corruption cases

Too Big to Jail? The Changing Face of Corporate Criminal Liability

• How prosecutors make use of investigation to extract sums of money from corporations through settlement
• The impact of the failure to prevent corporate fraud offence: Are companies well equipped to meet this challenge?
• The scope for entity liability for criminal offences and more aggressive prosecution for business owners and top management for wrongdoings
• Criminal liability: penalties for legal entities involved in offenses against the public administration and/or transnational corruption. Implications for the Odebrecht case

Networking Lunch

“Tour de Force”: A Cruise around the Offshore Jurisdictions

A multijurisdictional set of top experts will discuss specific tips and traps for chasing fraudsters, tracing assets, and obtaining judgments in a variety of offshore jurisdictions. This interactive panel will share insights and experiences from real life cases they have been involved in

• Tracing into complex offshore asset holding structures and maximising asset recovery with the procedures available
• Benefits of combining offshore and onshore dispute resolution strategies
• What search orders are available for asset searched in the various jurisdictions and how are they obtained
• Accessing bank account data
• The latest cases coming before the offshore courts
• What court applications need to be made and how quickly can you get an injunction
• Fraud in healthcare and medical services business in US (Californian perspective)

New Technology = New Fraud: Stop Playing Catch Up and Start Getting Ahead

• The art of communications vs AI: Should people just talk more?
• How AI is used by fraudsters? New types of fraud (claims) involving AI
• How AI can (and can’t) help fraud lawyers?
• The level of cyber breaches taking place. The level of AI that is being used to combat cyber breaches
• Computer judgements vs human judgements
• Completing disclosure using AI: Comments on latest case law

Networking and Refreshments Sponsored by

“March Back East”: Shareholder Disputes and Litigation involving Asian, Russian and African Parties

• Section 238 application process
• How to obtain recoveries when shareholder agreements are governed by Hong Kong law; contain Hong Kong arbitration clause and set up through offshore structures
• Advantages of shareholder litigation in BVI (and other offshore jurisdictions)
• Dealing with fraud tactics related to driving down the company’s share price in anticipation of a going-private transaction
• Minimising fraud risks with “go private” and reverse merger deals: Focus on the Cayman Islands
• The latest remedies available for shareholders seeking relief: unfair prejudice
• Class action lawsuits against Chinese reverse merger companies
• Shareholder oppression lawsuits and available remedies
• Interplay between statutory rights and contractual rights of shareholders

Do’s and Don’t’s of Fraud Litigation in Latin American Jurisdictions

• The interplay between criminal and civil remedies: The limitations and pitfalls
• Enforcement issues and building effective relationship with law enforcement bodies
• Reputational issues
• Main areas of risk in Uruguay. Connecting risks to corporate structures: using corporate structures to hide illicit activity
• Is this the end of the Uruguayan off-shore structures? Recent regulatory changes in line with the international requirements of greater transparency
• Statement of identification of beneficial owners and higher taxes for offshore structures

Networking Drinks Reception Hosted by

Registration and Networking Breakfast

Co-Chairs’ Opening Remarks

The Never Ending Story of “Blade – a Nautical Affair”

• The lust for speed
• A Turkish odyssey
• The JV Agreement and its aftermath
• Ships pass in the night
• Defamation, arbitration … and London
• Malta, Monaco and Genova – the aftermath

Networking and Refreshments Sponsored by

Resolving Collisions between Jurisdictions and Cross-border Insolvency Cooperation

• Large-scale investment frauds with multiple victims and assets: Challenges with bringing claims simultaneously in more than one jurisdiction
• Extraterritorial reach
• Common framework to resolve disparities in insolvency law and facilitate cooperation between the courts; between the courts and insolvency representatives; between insolvency representatives and any other parties

Reclaiming Proceeds of Tax Fraud: Do’s and Don’ts to Satisfy the Regulators and Recover Offshore Assets

• Latest legal challenges and regulatory impediments which complicate the recovery of offshore assets in international tax avoidance and evasion fraud cases: Recent high-profile cases and developments
• “Failure to prevent corporate offence’ in the UK: What’s on the horizon and who is in scope
• The latest on the liability of service providers
• Tracing and recovering proceeds of tax fraud and money laundering
• Challenges with structuring tax efficient trusts amidst increased focus on tax investigations

Chasing Eike Batista – Latin America’s Bernie Madoff

• Pick Your Turf – Don’t Follow into The Briar Patch
• Full and Frank – Front-Load for Bear
• Strategic Nuclear Warfare – Freezers, Gag Orders and Disclosure/Discovery
• “Don’t Ask, Don’t Get,” Part I – First Worldwide Treble Damages Freezing Order
• “Don’t Ask, Don’t Get,” Part II – First Florida Treble Damages Freezing Order
• The Payoff for Front-Loading

Networking Lunch

The Latest Anecdotes and War Stories in Private Client Disputes

Dealing with fraud cases in the context of trusts and other private client structures often needs a different approach to ‘mainstream’ fraud litigation. This session will consider the issues that arise, drawing on their experience in litigating private client disputes.

• Identifying fraud by trustees and obtaining the information to prove it
• Protecting trust assets
• Litigating as a discretionary beneficiary (including costs protection)
• Attacking and defending complex offshore and domestic trust structures

“Funding and Buying of Hard-to-Enforce Judgments and Claims Held By U.S. Bankrupt Estates – A New Method to Maintain Secrecy and Achieve Results” Case Study: In re Sheela Kumar

Discussion Topic

Creditor approval and notice is requisite in respect of all sales of bankruptcy assets pursuant to 11 U.S.C. 363. However, such advance notice and approval creates a disincentive for prospective buyers of judgments held by bankruptcy estates because the process of approval will alert the judgment debtor that an enforcement strategy is being prepared.

The presenter devised a novel method whereby a judgment held by an estate being administered in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida was assigned to a funder/buyer, pursuant to a gagged and sealed order, subject to the condition subsequent of 11 U.S.C. 363 notice and Court approval. This allowed for the requisite steps to be taken on a global basis to enforce the judgment before the judgment debtor was alerted and could take countermeasures.

Thereafter, the buyer implemented a multi-jurisdictional enforcement and “checkmate” strategy that resulted in multi-million-dollar seizures and the issuance of a “global TRO” in respect of the judgment debtor’s intangible property.

Judge Robert Mark, who presided over the estate both approved the new method arranged for the presenter to discuss the approach at a recent bankruptcy symposium to promote its use. The strategy has the potential unlock substantial and significant value for both debtors and potential funders/buyers, and in the Kumar case, resulted in a judgment thought to have little or no value being responsible for making the previously insolvent estate near-solvent.

Co-Chair’s Closing Remarks

End of Conference