Olshan’s multidisciplinary Cross-Border Litigation Group assists U.S. companies doing business overseas and foreign-based companies and individuals regarding commercial activities that trigger U.S. regulatory and compliance issues and litigation.
The challenges in navigating the legal landscape are magnified when cross-border issues arise. Experienced in an expansive range of international legal matters, Olshan’s Cross-Border Practice lawyers steer clients through complex legal and regulatory requirements.
Our team advises and defends international and U.S. companies, organizations, and individuals in sensitive government investigations, regulatory enforcement actions, and both civil and criminal litigation. We assist clients in responding to counterparties’ due diligence inquiries in sophisticated commercial transactions and design and advise on implementation of compliance programs.
Through our Globalaw and LAWorld memberships and the Brazil/American Chamber of Commerce, we have built a network of experienced off-shore counsel to help us meet the needs of our clients worldwide.
Litigation and Asset Recovery
We regularly handle cross-border litigation, arbitrations and asset recovery, which includes having final foreign judgments entered in U.S. courts and tracing and recovering misappropriated and/or missing assets to satisfy the ultimate U.S. judgments. Our lawyers also regularly represent foreign whistleblowers in U.S. regulatory actions involving global companies where activities abroad result in U.S. regulatory scrutiny.
Members of our White Collar Defense and Securities Litigation & Enforcement Practice Groups have routinely defended companies and individuals in prosecutions and civil enforcement matters brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA), securities laws, and the Commodity Exchange Act and by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Our cross-border litigation attorneys, in collaboration with Olshan’s Shareholder Activism Practice, provide support to counsel in foreign jurisdictions in off-shore proceedings that relate to U.S. listed securities regarding the U.S. securities laws, corporate governance and privilege issues.
U.S. Discovery in Support of Foreign Proceedings
U.S. law 28 U.S.C. § 1782 (known as “Section 1782”) allows an “interested party” to a foreign proceeding (including foreign civil and criminal proceedings) to seek U.S.-style discovery from a person or entity located in the United States. Such discovery – for documents, deposition testimony and responses to written interrogatories – is often not available in the foreign jurisdiction and may be used in foreign actions that are either pending or contemplated. Olshan’s Cross-Border team has significant experience in utilizing Section 1782 cases to obtain critical evidence in the U.S. for use in foreign litigation. The evidence we have been able to gather for clients through Section 1782 often has proved critical to our clients, enabling them to build winning appraisal and corporate governance cases.
Regulatory Compliance
Olshan’s cross-border practice encompasses counseling multinational client companies on regulatory issues, conducting internal reviews and audits of compliance procedures, and designing and helping clients implement state-of-the-art compliance programs for operations spanning multiple continents.
We represent clients on transactions in the United States that trigger concerns and require approvals by the CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States). Our regulatory compliance attorneys help companies both address trade and export risks and defend individuals and companies in Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases. For example, we represented a U.S. biotech company in an internal review concerning possible shipments to embargoed and restricted countries and in assessing its compliance program. We also assisted a company based in China in successfully navigating CFIUS review and in securing approval of the purchase and sale of a U.S. company to a foreign purchaser.
