An International Guide to Corporate Internal Investigations

Mark Beardsworth is a partner in Cadwalader’s White Collar Defense and Investigations Group, resident in the London office. Mark focuses his practice in the defense of serious fraud and complex criminal and regulatory matters. He has been involved in more than 30 investigations conducted by the Serious Fraud Office over the last 25 years. These cases are often complex, high profile and international in nature. Mark conducts internal investigations for major global corporates, and advises those companies and their directors on risk and governance issues. He has conducted investigations around the world in numerous sectors and jurisdictions and is currently advising on matters involving issues in 6 continents. He is experienced in conducting investigations for a wide range of entities including regulators, charities, schools, local government authorities, and major sports teams. He helps clients to manage and avoid reputational and enforcement risk in a wide range of scenarios. Mark is recognized as a leader in the field of commercial fraud in The Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners directories. He is also recognized as a Thought and Global Leader in Who’s Who Legal and Global Investigations Review for Asset Recovery, Business Crime Defence – Corporates and Individuals, and Investigations. Mark is the co-chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section International White Collar Crime Committee. Patrick Hanes focuses his practice on handling all manner of disputes that arise from business competition and regulation. He has practiced with the law firm Williams Mullen in Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, since 1995. His practice has included a broad base of civil and criminal litigation at both the trial and appellate levels. Patrick has substantial experience conducting investigations both in the United States and overseas. He has represented businesses and individuals in government and corporate investigations in matters involving securities and banking regulation, antitrust, conspiracy, wire fraud, tax disputes, environmental laws, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He has handled the defense of several dozen criminal and civil investigations conducted by the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, state prosecutors, and other federal and state investigative and regulatory agencies. He regularly supports corporate transactions by conducting regulatory due diligence on a variety of matters. He has advised many clients on whistleblower matters, including employment retaliation claims. He also advises several public and private company clients regarding their legal compliance programs and conducts compliance investigations, risk assessments, and training inside the United States as well as in several other countries in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Patrick is the co-chair of the American Bar Association’s White Collar Crime Regional Committee for the Southeast Region and the co-chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s International White Collar Crime Committee. He also serves as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law, teaching in the area of white-collar crime and investigations. Prior to joining Williams Mullen, Patrick served as a law clerk to the Honorable Albert V. Bryan, Jr., Senior Judge for the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia. He received his law degree in 1994 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of the University of Virginia Law Review. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia in 1988, where he was an Echols Scholar. Ibtissem Lassoued has extensive experience advising international clients on a spectrum of complex, multijurisdictional white collar crime issues, including but not limited to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, global economic sanctions, anti-corruption issues including the extraterritorial effect of the US FCPA and UK Bribery act, complex fraud, extradition and INTERPOL notices, and Capital Market investigations. Ibtissem offers clients a full and practical knowledge of the remit of inter-governmental organizations, in particular in relation to the FATF and MENAFATF, and the effect of these on anti-corruption efforts, confiscation of the proceeds of crime, de-risking and the reporting of suspicious transactions. Ibtissem has been ranked as Band 1 in Chambers Global for Corporate Investigations for 6 consecutive years since the category’s inclusion and is commended for being ‘a brilliant practitioner’, ‘as passionate about her area of expertise as she is knowledgeable,’ and ‘stunningly good at what she does.’ In February 2021, Ibtissem was appointed as the Chair of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime Middle East and North Africa Chapter. Her work with the Global Coalition involves strategic oversight and direction of the Global Coalition’s activity in all MENA countries and active involvement in the development of an effective financial crime system across the public and private sectors. In 2019, she was ranked amongst Financial News’ 50 Most Influential Women in Middle East Finance, and is currently serving as a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute, a non-profit non-governmental organization based in Prague, Czech Republic, dedicated to advancing the rule of law. Saverio Lembo heads Bär & Karrer’s White Collar Crime practice group. He also has extensive experience in commercial and financial litigation, international judicial assistance (civil and criminal), and arbitration. During recent years, he has been involved in various complex commercial litigation proceedings, has served as a party representative or arbitrator in various commercial arbitrations, and has assisted clients in Swiss and foreign criminal proceedings. He regularly represents clients before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Saverio Lembo’s practice also extends to pharmaceutical litigation and enforcement of foreign judgments/awards. Saverio Lembo is ranked in Band 1 of the leading lawyers in White-Collar Crime Switzerland by Chambers & Partners. He was awarded “Lawyer of the Year for Switzerland” in the categories “Business Crime Defence,” “Litigation,” and “Investigations” by Who’s Who Legal in 2021. Frances McLeod is a founding partner of FRA and head of its US offices. She is a former investment banker with more than 26 years of experience advising diverse clients on sanctions, anti-corruption, fraud, internal controls, asset tracing, and money laundering issues. She has extensive experience addressing complex international data-transfer issues in regulatory investigations and cross-border litigation, including leading the FRA team responding to anticorruption investigation data requests in all jurisdictions for Alstom. Frances has been deeply involved in all of FRA’s compliance monitorship work, including having recently served as the DOJ-appointed independent compliance monitor on the IAV GmbH monitorship. She has also been involved in numerous other US DOJ and SEC FCPA monitorships, a New York Department of Financial Services bank monitorship, the Ferguson City monitorship, a PCAOB monitorship, and a US DOJ fraud-related monitorship.