Insights

As part of U.S. law enforcement’s focus on fighting money laundering and corruption in Latin America, sanctions have become a “powerful, rapid-fire tool” in the arsenal, Kobre & Kim’s Evelyn Sheehan told Aguilar Castillo Love’s Natalia Callejas in the second part of a Q&A on new enforcement trends in the region.

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2022 looks set to be a landmark year for U.S. antitrust law as Congress considers multiple competition bills aimed at curbing corporate consolidation and the self-preferencing of technology companies. Kobre & Kim’s Benjamin Sirota, a former U.S. federal antitrust prosecutor, previewed the proposals with Law360.

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Companies and executives now face the risk of indictments as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) moves to treat wage-fixing and no-poach antitrust cases as criminal, rather than civil, matters. Kobre & Kim’s Benjamin Sirota, a former U.S. federal antitrust prosecutor, examined the possible implications when he spoke with Bloomberg Law.

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As U.S.-China tensions mount, Chinese individuals and entities are facing rising risks of becoming targets of U.S. criminal investigations. Shanghai-based Wade Weems, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, and Joshua Huang, a former PRC prosecutor focused on cross-border enforcement, share how Chinese targets should respond to protect their liberty and assets in an article for Caixin Global.

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The U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released plans to increase oversight of the real estate market to fight money laundering, the latest in “a consistent drumbeat” of ever-growing reporting duties for global buyers and real estate professionals, Kobre & Kim’s Evelyn Sheehan explained to Global Investigations Review.

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As U.S. authorities step up enforcement against corporate corruption in 2021, they are utilizing an increasingly broad array of tools to proactively – and covertly – investigate companies, rather than just relying on self-reporting. Kobre & Kim’s Wade Weems, a former U.S. federal prosecutor focused on global corruption and bribery, unpacked the trend for The Anti-Corruption Report’s 2021 Year in Review.

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The UK antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), forced Facebook parent company Meta to unwind the acquisition of GIF database company Giphy. This decision demonstrates the willingness of global antitrust regulators to scrutinize even deals between companies based an ocean away, Benjamin Sirota, a former U.S. federal antitrust prosecutor, told Quartz.

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Recent scandals in Costa Rica – namely operations Diamante and Cochinilla – have brought corruption to the forefront of the public in the region. Together with renewed efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat corruption in Latin America, individuals and companies there now find themselves located in the global risk capital for anticorruption and compliance enforcement. Evelyn Sheehan, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who oversaw international corruption and bribery investigations, examined the latest developments when she sat down with renowned Costa Rican journalist Amelia Rueda for a Spanish-language radio interview.

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For the first time, the UK’s antitrust regulator ordered an American tech company to sell one of its major acquisitions. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled that Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, must divest Giphy, a GIF database and search engine. As Benjamin Sirota, a former U.S. federal antitrust prosecutor, told Quartz, this spells trouble for Facebook and other large tech companies.

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The passage of the United States-Northern Triangle Enhanced Engagement Act in the U.S. last year – aimed at targeted sanctions to fight corruption in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras –led to the U.S. State Department’s creation of the “Engel List.” The Engel List is a list of corrupt and undemocratic actors in those countries. It signals the United States’ accelerating enforcement in Central America, increasing risks for individuals in the region, as Kobre & Kim’s Martin De Luca, Wade Weems and Scott Nielson explained in an article for The Anti-Corruption Report.

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Kobre & Kim's London-based lawyers Andrew Stafford KC and Oleg Shaulko, who focus their practices on cross-border judgment enforcement matters involving sovereign entities, dive into the the issue of sovereign immunity in their article "How Immune are State Agents from Foreign Courts?" published in Law360.

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Looming defaults of a number of Chinese private companies, including Evergrande and Suning, point to a complicated relationship with offshore creditors that may leave foreign investors without a path to recoup their investments via Chinese courts. In Anastasiia Carrier’s article “Trust Games” in The Wire China, Kobre & Kim’s Jason Kang touches on why offshore creditors face such an uphill battle and hints at possible strategies for recovery.

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Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) have facilitated global investment, but their value hinges on the ability to collect on a BIT award if anything goes wrong – and when the award debtor is a sovereign state, investors face unique challenges. Kobre & Kim’s Andrew Stafford KC, who has deep experience in international judgment enforcement against sovereign debtors, walk through how creditors can navigate the complexities in a chapter for International Comparative Legal Guides’ “Investor-State Arbitration 2022.”

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With little congressional action, U.S. financial regulators are asserting – sometimes in aggressive fashion – their authorities over the crypto industry. Kobre & Kim’s David McGill and Benjamin Sauter, both of whom regularly defend firms in the digital asset sector from government enforcement, spoke with Law360 about what the industry should expect from regulators.

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