News

Prosecutions brought for cross-border crime are on the rise

Kinstellar symposium on internal corporate investigations and trends in prosecution of corruption offenses.

Kinstellar organised a two-day international symposium for members of its Compliance, Risk & Sensitive Investigations team from Kinstellar offices in Almaty, Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest, Istanbul, and Prague, as well as a panel discussion event clients from across a wide range of industries. The symposium hosted a number of external international speakers who shared their experience in, primarily, internal corporate investigations and the implementation of internal compliance measures.

Prominent themes emerging from the discussions were the growth in international cooperation among investigative teams in various countries (within Europe and with the US), and the increase in the number of prosecutions of cross-border crime (in particular corruption and tax fraud). Considerable attention was also devoted to examining how effective compliance programmes can help to reduce the incidence of offenses and support companies in preventing prosecutions from being brought in exonerating companies in cases where isolated incidents have occurred.

A further emerging theme was the importance of reputational management as a strong driver of enhanced compliance efforts – perhaps as significant as the avoidance of formal sanctions. Black-listing by potential business partners and financial institutions can create a domino effect (for example, via a cross-debarment agreement between multilateral development banks).

Over the last two years we have registered a surge in demand from CEE companies (the number has almost doubled) for advice on the design of efficient compliance programmes and for the internal investigation of potential breaches of both internal directives and generally applicable legislation on the part of their employees. We expect this trend to grow significantly stronger in the future, as authorities’ activity is increasing in respect of prosecuting companies’ criminal offences.

Among the invited speakers, Kinstellar welcomed representatives of the German law firm Gleiss Lutz, the Canadian engineering company SNC-Lavalin, a former liaison officer of the Austrian police, and a representative of Espion (a provider of forensic technologies). Representatives of non-governmental anti-corruption initiatives, forensic specialists, and representatives from academia and companies operating in the IT, retail, energy, pharmaceuticals, and banking and financial services sectors participated in the client event.

Kinstellar CRSI practice

Kinstellar has the leading Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations practice in Emerging Europe and Central Asia. Our strengths include a multi-jurisdictional approach, deep knowledge of the region’s anti-corruption laws and culture, familiarity with regional and international enforcement trends, extensive experience in US FCPA driven investigations and proficiency in dealing with local authorities.

We have experience in crisis management and communications and expert knowledge in matters of legal privilege, data protection, employee privacy, document retention, security, and corporate and directors‘ liability.

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About Kinstellar

Kinstellar is a leading independent law firm in Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia, with offices in Almaty (Kazakhstan), Belgrade (Serbia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Bucharest (Romania), Budapest (Hungary), Istanbul (Turkey) and Prague (Czech Republic).

Kinstellar’s top-tier practices cover Banking, Finance and Capital Markets, Competition/State Aid, Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations, Dispute Resolution, Employment and Labour Law, Energy, Infrastructure and Projects, Life Sciences and Healthcare, M&A and Corporate, Private Equity, Real Estate, Restructuring and Insolvency, Tax, Telecoms, Media and Technology

For more information please contact

Luděk Wojnar, Marketing & Business Development Advisor

Tel: office no. +420 221 622 144

e-mail: ludek.wojnar@kinstellar.com