Insights | Kobre & Kim — Disputes and Investigations

As a key economic center in the region, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is increasingly the place where many international creditors go as they pursue their debtor’s assets.
However, some recalcitrant debtors may try to transfer their assets away to avoid payment in a fraudulent transfer.
Our team explores what strategies are available in the UAE to restore a creditor’s interests.

Debtor-friendly Delaware has strong asset protection laws that make it a destination of choice for global entities and individuals looking to hold their assets in a trust.
This creates a headache for international creditors – recovering assets in a Delaware trust can seem like an insurmountable challenge.
By adopting a creative, aggressive and multijurisdictional strategy, however, creditors can crack even Delaware’s notoriously tough trusts.

Victims of large-scale and sophisticated fraud in Brazil may struggle to recover their assets by only using tools available in the domestic legal system.
However, a growing interest in fighting cross-border crime by U.S. authorities, together with the power of tools in the U.S., provide victims with a potentially better path to success.
Our cross-border team explains what strategies victims can deploy to achieve results.

When crypto and blockchain companies, funds or exchanges find themselves the target of a sophisticated, large-scale fraud or cyber attack, speed through global reach is key.
Companies often make impulsive decisions that imperil their recovery chances and business interests.
The pseudonymous and borderless nature of cryptocurrency means companies need to take a cross-border and nontraditional approach to maximize success.

The U.S. Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), part of the recently-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), has broken new ground by requiring beneficial owners of U.S. corporate entities to register with U.S. government authorities.
While the CTA appears to shut out private parties – such as creditors and victims of fraud – from accessing such information, there may be potential creative ways to work around this roadblock, bringing creditors one step closer to a substantial recovery of their assets.
Nevertheless, creative creditors and their counsel might be able to obtain this information through certain channels to cut off escape routes for debtors and fraudsters, and obtain more complete recoveries.

Prevailing case law in BVI and Cayman has historically not allowed injunctions to be granted by the offshore courts unless there is an existing claim against the defendant within the jurisdiction of the Court granting the injunction.
Fortunately, that position has changed in the Cayman Islands and now in BVI, with claimants, including those from onshore jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China, able to obtain “free-standing” injunctive relief in both offshore jurisdictions.
With the advent of the new law in BVI, and the continuing willingness of the Cayman Islands’ Courts to make protective orders, victims of fraud are now in a better position than they have ever been to guard against a defendant’s dissipation of its offshore assets whilst they are waiting for a judgment.

International creditors continue to face significant challenges when monetizing claims against debtors based in the People's Republic of China.
Actions such as a standalone freezing injunction can be used in English common law jurisdictions to freeze assets that are held by innocent third parties.
Injunctions and receiverships can be made without giving notice to the debtor, bestowing the "element of surprise."

One of the most common forms of fraud affecting businesses worldwide is Business Email Compromise (BEC).
Often based in Asia, BEC fraudsters are known to use a network of underground moneychangers to move stolen funds rapidly beyond the reach of victims.
When affected, victims need to match the speed of the criminals, acting across multiple jurisdictions and with the full set of legal tools necessary to trace, freeze and recover assets effectively.

While a divorce for the ultra-wealthy might be local, monetizing the resulting judgment requires sophisticated cross-border expertise.
A timely, proactive and creative asset recovery strategy leads to more money faster.
Obtaining a court judgment against the recalcitrant debtor is just the start of a global game of chess in which experience, creativity and global reach are essential.

The art world is an attractive target because of its fast-paced, high-value transactions with minimal documentation.
Once the money has been wired to the criminal’s account, they move to transfer the funds to erase their trace and disappear undetected.
Victims of such a hack must wield all of the legal and investigative tools at their disposal to maximize the odds of recovery.

Recent judgments have provided victims with a new route to claim damages from third parties, and thereby widen the pool from which to make a recovery.
Claimants in numerous common law jurisdictions now can bring two new types of claims against associates of fraudsters who have assisted in the dissipation of assets after a freezing order or judgment has been obtained.
Creditors seeking to make recoveries against fraudsters based in offshore jurisdictions should consider these two new, but related, claims against third parties when developing their asset recovery strategy.