As the Summer of 2020 rolls on, with lockdowns relaxing in some countries and reinstating in others, travel around the world via our FIRE International issue featuring insight from practitioners in Kazakhstan, BVI, Isle of Man, UK, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, and Hong Kong.

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We are delighted to bring you the 'Litigation in Lockdown' edition of the FIRE Magazine, where you will get the latest insights from all professionals whose practice encompasses or touches upon Fraud, Insolvency, Recovery, Enforcement.

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As part of the recent CIGA, the Government has introduced new provisions into the IA which provide for a new free standing moratorium available to companies, independent of any separate insolvency proceedings.

Judgment creditors are often cursed by asymmetrical information. When it comes time to enforce, a debtor will already know what assets it owns and where those assets are located. Unscrupulous debtors will try to hide or transform their assets through layers of transactions designed to frustrate enforcement. Bridging that informational gap requires the creative deployment of various investigative tools on behalf of the creditor.

On 9 May 2020, Bleepingcomputer.com published an article with an ominous sounding title “Hacker group floods dark web with data stolen from 11 companies”. In the article, it was revealed that a hacking group known as Shiny Hunters had hacked into the databases of companies such as Tokopedia (Indonesia’s largest online store) and Unacademy (one of India’s largest online learning platforms), and had begun selling the user databases over the Dark Web for between $500 to $5,000 each.

Economic uncertainty brought by the Covid-19 pandemic will undoubtedly have a profound effect on the value of trust assets. Industry experts predict steep rises in insolvencies, affecting key industries. Many businesses may become cash-flow/balance sheet insolvent (if they are not already).

The severe economic and social impact of COVID-19 has increased the likelihood of fraud, not just in relation to the government assistance schemes where false claims could be made, but also the risks faced by companies and other organisations who may be subject to fraud as a result of the new working environment.

Switzerland’s recurrent presence in multi-jurisdictional asset tracing exercises is certainly not proportionate to the small size of its territory. For creditors however, the Swiss jurisdiction poses a number of challenges in terms of information retrieval. From the lack of centralized data to the use of three different main languages in business life, conducting research in Switzerland is often perceived as complex and costly.

Panama, which infamous “Panama Papers” have put the country in the limelight for the past four years, is not a traditional offshore jurisdiction. It is more of a traditional Civil Law jurisdiction with a (formerly) notable offshore sector. In the strict Civil Law tradition, Panamanian substantive and procedural laws tend to stress legal remedies over equitable remedies.  Thus, its judiciary is not prone to issue equitable relief to the same extent it is issued by its Common Law counterparts in England, the British Commonwealth and the United States of America.

Singapore is one of Asia’s leading centres for conventional banking and financial services, and is fast becoming a hub for digital payments and cryptocurrency platforms. As such, there is an ever-present risk of fraud. This article provides a snapshot of the mechanisms through which victims of fraud may seek to recover assets via civil proceedings in Singapore.

COVID-19 has had an overwhelming impact on the global economy. Future economic effects of the pandemic will largely depend on the efficiency of government actions. At present, record number of personal, corporate, local, and cross-border bankruptcy filings is being anticipated due to the virus.1 A vast majority of airlines is likely to collapse without extensive financial support paving the way to a litany of multinational failures

The insolvency process often features as a weapon in the asset recovery arsenal so far as corporate targets are concerned. It’s utility not only as a mechanism to recover assets but also as a tool with which to recovery information is well known. The appointment of administrators by creditors with a qualified floating charge is quick and effective and so it is not surprising why it is favoured by secured creditors. It’s use by unsecured creditors is, however, much less frequent principally because of the lack of information about the company’s business and affairs.

A form of fraud which FIRE practitioners are often asked to advise on starts with a contract, where one party is required to pay the other. For example, the paying party might be a buyer under a sale contract. The dispute arises where a fraudster has induced the buyer to pay the fraudster instead of the seller

Shaun Reardon-John outlines why pre-action asset investigation and preservation is going to be crucial during the Coronavirus crisis.

The COVID-19 crisis has caused a perfect storm in which the increase in commercial disputes, fraud-related behaviours and insolvencies has come hand-in-hand with the impossibility of the judicial system to deal with them, as the crisis has also prevented the courts from operating normally.

As fraud continues to be rife, it is important to develop new tools and strengthen existing mechanisms to enable claimants to pursue, locate and enforce against fraudsters and their ill-gotten assets.  Over the past few years, the English Courts have continued to develop the law in this area. We set out below a non-exhaustive snapshot of some of these developments in three areas. These highlight the progress continuing to be made in the fight against fraud, and bodes extremely well for the future.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the far reaching and drastic measures implemented in numerous countries around the world, we are receiving an increasing number of insolvency and restructuring enquiries from our clients.

This quarterly civil fraud update provides a summary of reported decisions handed down in the courts of England and Wales in the period April - June 2020.

This quarterly civil fraud update provides a summary of reported decisions handed down in the courts of England and Wales in the period January - March 2020.

Prior to hearing directly from Kweku Adoboli on the 19th May. This is a must read case study 

The government announced plans to introduce changes to current insolvency laws to ease pressures on UK businesses being caused by the global pandemic, COVID19. 

A freeze on fraud? Whilst the global economy is on hold as countries focus on defeating the coronavirus, if past experience of economic crises offers any guidance, then these will be precisely the times when fraud increases. Fortunately, the English legal system remains well placed to tackle this.

The case of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy v Kevin William Eagling [2019] EWHC 2806 (Ch) was the first brought by the Secretary of State under a regime in the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 providing for compensation orders. The

Insolvency proceedings are a potential option for clients to consider in situations where there are unpaid debts, judgments and orders and/or concerns over the dissipation of assets.

It is recognised that insolvency can seem a nuclear option for enforcement but insolvency proceedings can be an effective strategy to maximise recoveries where a client has an outstanding award.

The Family Court has demonstrated a willingness to assist a party to enforce a financial remedy order by allowing use of confidential documents where there is evidence of deliberate attempts by the respondent to frustrate English court’s orders, and where there is no evidence that the applicant acted unlawfully in accessing confidential materials.

Boris Berezovsky was born in January 1946. He was a Russian business Oligarch, government official and mathematician. Berezovsky was politically opposed to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin...