Warren Hamel, Kan Nawaday, and Stephen Salsbury published "Pursuing individual officers and directors responsible for criminal fraud" in the February 2019 issue of Financier Worldwide Magazine. Here is an excerpt:
In the past, the notion of prosecuting an executive of a multinational corporation residing in a foreign country, especially one on the far side of the world, may have seemed remote. But two recent cases illustrate the increasingly international reach of white-collar criminal prosecutors. In many ways, the allegations underlying the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund (1MDB) scandal and the detention of Huawei chief financial officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou have little in common. The first is a scintillating tale taken quite literally out of Hollywood. The 1MDB fraud involved a scheme that spanned four continents and ultimately prompted investigations by 10 different countries to identify and prosecute.
As for the case involving Ms. Meng, allegations of sanctions violations have taken center stage in an international power struggle between the two most powerful nations on earth. One common theme, however, is that prosecutors are making a point of pursuing criminal charges against individuals at the top of large multinational organizations. For that reason, both cases carry a simple but important warning: more than ever before, prosecutors around the world are more serious about and capable of bringing criminal charges against individual officers and directors of multinational organizations.