After the “unprecedented” year that was 2020, Q1 of 2021 has been fast and furious for both ThoughtLeaders4 FIRE and the Asset Recovery Community. As office doors creak open, wingtips start to hit the pavements and signs of life cautiously return to London, our authors review this quarter with one eye firmly fixed on the future. 

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Join us on 24th March to delve into the art of the FIRE practitioner’s response… the bidding starts at 4pm GMT…

Mr Baia is a UHNWI with a personal interest in art but lacking special knowledge about the same, both about technical aspects and about the art market itself. Mr Sella is a reputable player in the art market, usually acting as an agent but also as an art dealer. Mr Sella agrees to sell some art to Mr Baia, however Mr Seller is acting as the undisclosed nominee/agent of Mr Oli Garch, whose wife is on the US sanctions list. Mr Baia pays Mr Sella a substantial deposit in USD, with the rest payable on delivery....

CASE STUDY - ASSET RECOVERY VS. SOVEREIGN STATES: A RORSHACH TEST 
Tuesday, 9 February 2021

ThoughtLeaders4 FIRE would like to invite our readers to reflect on the tumultuous year that has been 2020. Guest edited by Mary Young, Partner at Kingsley Napley and chair of our Year in Review event on 4th December 2020, our Year in Review authors asses the hot topics of the year.

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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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In the first initial coin offering 'ICO' fraud case before the Commercial Court, Ion Science Limited & Duncan Johns v Persons Unknown & Ors, the court granted permission to serve disclosure orders on two cryptocurrency exchanges through which the claimants' stolen bitcoin had been traced, granted a world-wide freezing order against persons unknown, and gave ground-breaking guidance on the lex situs of crypto-assets...

ThoughtLeaders4 is pleased to announce that Stevens & Bolton LLP have joined ThoughtLeaders4 FIRE as a key Community Partner.

ThoughtLeaders4 is delighted to announce that Anita Arthur has joined as Director for our new DISPUTES community that will be launching shortly.

Anita brings huge experience within the industry and a strong track record of launching and growing market leading events over the last 15 years within disputes, sanctions, anti-corruption, fraud & asset recovery and private equity, among others.

James has been the commercial lead on many globally renowned Private Client events and forums  and has over 10 years of experience of curating communities across the full spectrum of the Private Client advisory market.

James’s arrival re-unites him with Laura Golding and along with the ThoughtLeaders4 directors, gives over 30 years’ experience within Private Client, and will add continued impetus to an already rapidly growing community.

Case study outine for TL4 Virtual Community X-Over on 19 November 2020 is a unique virtual event bringing together HNW Divorce, FIRE and Private Client experts.

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.