Pacta sunt servanda.
Practice area · VI
International investigations, transnational crime and crisis management
An international investigation is not a trial that begins; it is a power dynamic that sets in, often before any formal charge. Requests for mutual legal assistance, searches carried out on behalf of a foreign authority, asset freezes, parallel proceedings in several jurisdictions: coercion is brought to bear on several fronts at once. Defence lies not in answering each measure in isolation, but in mapping the whole, sequencing the fronts and imposing a single strategy. A transnational investigation is won by architecture, not by improvisation.
Request for mutual legal assistance; search or seizure on behalf of a foreign authority; asset freeze and transnational recovery; cross-border economic crime, corruption, money laundering, fraud; parallel criminal proceedings against the company and its executives; self-reporting and negotiated justice, CJIP or DPA; internal investigation and legal professional privilege; multi-jurisdictional crisis to be managed as a matter of urgency: characterising the framework and coordinating the fronts always precede the response.
Investigation and mutual legal assistance
Requests for mutual legal assistance, searches, seizures, extradition, international cooperation
Transnational economic crime
Corruption, money laundering, fraud, sanctions, asset recovery
Coordinated defence and crisis management
Parallel proceedings, negotiated justice, internal investigation, Crisis Room
In a transnational investigation, it is rarely the law that is lost. What is lost is command of the fronts, for want of a strategy to order them.
Identify your situation
Investigation, mutual legal assistance, economic crime: identify your situation
Six points of entry, for the company as for the executive. The firm handles each in isolation, or several together under a single strategy.
A company or executive is targeted by an international investigation
Opening of an investigation abroad, request for mutual legal assistance, questioning, search or seizure on behalf of a foreign authority. Objective: to characterise at once the framework, the applicable safeguards and the available remedies, before the coercion hardens.
Transnational economic crime is at issue
Corruption, money laundering, fraud, misuse of corporate assets or breach of sanctions, with a cross-border dimension. Objective: to characterise the facts and the overlapping regimes, and to build the defence without opening new fronts.
A search, a seizure or an asset freeze must be challenged as a matter of urgency
A measure is executed in one jurisdiction for the benefit of a foreign authority, sometimes beyond the scope of the request. Objective: to characterise its legal basis, to verify its scope and the protection of legal professional privilege, and to pursue remedies without delay.
Self-reporting or negotiated justice (CJIP, DPA) is under consideration
Decision to self-report, to cooperate or to negotiate a convention judiciaire d'intérêt public or a deferred prosecution agreement. Objective: to assess the merits, the scope and the consequences for the individuals concerned.
A defence must be coordinated across several jurisdictions
Parallel criminal proceedings in several States, risk of contradiction between fronts, conflict of interest between the company and its executives. Objective: to map the proceedings and to impose a coherent and disciplined strategy.
International cooperation or asset recovery is at stake
European Public Prosecutor's Office, joint investigation team, transnational asset recovery or institutional crisis. Objective: to understand the competences at play, to protect the rights of the defence and to structure the response.
Forum coordination
A defence is won through coordination, never through scattered reaction.
A transnational investigation is not a single front: each forum obeys its own rules.
Strategic diagnosis
Warning signs and aggravating factors
Certain indicators show that the situation no longer calls for ordinary handling, but for a crisis architecture. These signals are not sufficient to characterise the case in law; they warrant a rapid, confidential and structured mapping.
Warning signs
- Request for mutual legal assistance, search or seizure executed on behalf of a foreign authority.
- Asset freeze or transmission of documents in several jurisdictions.
- Internal investigation launched under media or judicial pressure.
- Risk of a CJIP, a DPA or negotiated cooperation.
- Possible divergence between the interests of the company and those of its executives.
- Involvement of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, Eurojust or a joint investigation team.
Aggravating factors
- Lack of coordination between national counsel.
- Contradictory statements in several sets of proceedings.
- Internal investigation poorly framed as regards legal professional privilege and the rights of the persons interviewed.
- Self-reporting contemplated without any analysis of the individuals' exposure.
- Asset defence conducted separately from the criminal front.
Mistakes to avoid
- Responding to a request for mutual legal assistance without verifying its scope and its treaty basis.
- Allowing internal documents to circulate without a confidentiality strategy.
- Treating the company and its executives as though their interests were necessarily aligned.
- Negotiating with one authority without mapping the other fronts.
- Underestimating the admissibility and subsequent use of the evidence transmitted.
Situation 1 · International investigation and mutual legal assistance
International investigation and mutual legal assistance
Requests for mutual legal assistance, searches executed for a foreign authority, extradition: where coercion materialises, often before any charge.
Mutual legal assistance: the first vector of coercion
Mutual legal assistance in criminal matters allows the authority of one State to request investigative acts from another State: questioning, search, seizure, asset freeze, transmission of documents. It rests on conventions, such as the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 1959 and its protocols, or on bilateral agreements and European Union instruments. For the person concerned, it is often through mutual legal assistance that coercion first materialises, before any formal charge.
Mutual legal assistance, extradition and arrest warrant: regimes not to be confused
Mutual legal assistance concerns investigative or procedural acts; extradition and the arrest warrant concern the surrender of a person for the purpose of prosecution or the enforcement of a sentence. The treaty bases, the grounds for refusal and the safeguards differ. The surrender of a person and the INTERPOL mechanisms fall principally within the practice of extradition and transnational defence, which interlocks with the mutual legal assistance strand without merging into it.
Challenging a search or seizure executed for a foreign State
The priority is to characterise the framework of the measure at once: issuing authority, treaty basis, scope, applicable safeguards and avenues of recourse. A measure executed in one jurisdiction for the benefit of a foreign authority may be challenged where it exceeds the request, disregards legal professional privilege, breaches the rule of speciality or constitutes a disproportionate interference with rights. The speed of the response determines the effectiveness of the remedy.
In mutual legal assistance, coercion precedes the charge: it is the immediate characterisation of the measure, not the defence on the merits, that opens or forecloses the remedies.
Situation 2 · Transnational economic crime
Corruption, money laundering and cross-border fraud
Overlapping offences, coordinating authorities, asset recovery and sanctions: map before taking a position.
Corruption, money laundering, fraud: overlapping regimes
Transnational economic crime brings into play offences that overlap and authorities that coordinate: bribery of foreign public officials, money laundering, fraud, misuse of corporate assets, illicit financing. A single transaction may fall simultaneously within the law of several States, international standards and sanctions regimes, with extraterritorial effects. Mapping the offences and the forums comes before any position is taken.
Transnational asset recovery
Asset recovery seeks to identify, freeze, confiscate and return assets derived from corruption, fraud or money laundering. Chapter V of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (Mérida, 2003) principally structures cooperation between States, supported by the StAR initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. For the defence as for the victim, the asset strategy is built early, in step with the criminal strand.
Sanctions, compliance and the criminal grey area
A transaction that is compliant in one jurisdiction may give rise to criminal exposure in another, through the effect of sanctions regimes and their extraterritorial extensions. Breach of sanctions, circumvention and complicity in financing may found separate prosecutions. Control of the risk turns on the analysis of licences and exemptions and on the characterisation of the flows.
A transaction lawful under local law may ground a prosecution elsewhere: transnational economic crime is never read one jurisdiction at a time.
Situation 3 · Multi-jurisdictional defence
Coordinated defence and ne bis in idem
Parallel proceedings, consistency between fronts, transnational ne bis in idem and conflicts of interest between the company and its executives.
Coordinating a defence across several jurisdictions
Every position taken in one jurisdiction, whether a statement, a written submission or a response to a request for mutual legal assistance, must be consistent with the others. A contradiction between fronts is immediately exploited by the authorities and the opposing parties. Coordination presupposes a map of the proceedings, a common strategy and a unified communication discipline, steered by a single coordinating counsel.
The principle of ne bis in idem in a transnational context
The principle of ne bis in idem prohibits prosecuting or trying a person twice for the same facts. Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees it first and foremost within the domestic legal order of a single State. Its cross-border reach depends on the applicable framework: it is particularly developed within the European Union, through Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement and Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Outside that framework, its international reach remains limited and must be assessed case by case.
Company and executives: interests that may diverge
The interests of the legal entity and those of its executives may diverge: a position favourable to the company, such as self-reporting or cooperation, may weaken the position of individuals, and vice versa. The defence must anticipate these conflicts of interest, arrange for separate counsel where necessary, and preserve overall consistency without sacrificing the rights of any of those concerned.
A transnational investigation is not lost on the merits: it is lost on the contradiction between fronts, exploited by the adversary.
Situation 4 · Negotiated justice and internal investigation
Negotiated justice and internal investigation
Self-reporting, CJIP and DPA, a properly framed internal investigation and the protection of legal professional privilege: double-edged weapons.
Self-reporting and negotiated justice
Self-reporting and the mechanisms of negotiated justice, such as the convention judiciaire d'intérêt public under French law, introduced by the Law of 9 December 2016, or the deferred prosecution agreement in other jurisdictions, may, in certain configurations, reduce the exposure of the legal entity, but may also shift or aggravate the exposure of executives and other individuals. The convention judiciaire d'intérêt public allows a legal entity to avoid a criminal trial in return for a fine and, where applicable, a compliance programme, without any admission of guilt. The decision to resort to it must factor in its effects on every open or foreseeable front.
The internal investigation, conducted methodically
An internal investigation allows a company to establish the facts, to characterise the breaches and to decide on its response before or during proceedings. In France, the Agence française anticorruption and the Parquet national financier have published a practical guide to anti-corruption internal investigations. Its scope, data protection, respect for the rights of the persons interviewed and the traceability of findings must be framed from the outset.
Protecting professional secrecy and legal privilege
The protection of communications and documents varies greatly from one jurisdiction to another: common law legal privilege, the secret professionnel of the avocat under French law and the protection afforded to in-house lawyers have neither the same scope nor the same reach. An internal investigation conducted without a proper framework may forfeit the benefit of confidentiality and expose its own findings. Structuring confidentiality is a condition of the investigation, not a detail.
Negotiated justice and the internal investigation are double-edged weapons: poorly framed, they produce the evidence for the prosecution.
Situation 5 · Cooperation and crisis management
European Public Prosecutor's Office, JITs and Crisis Room
Competences at play, joint investigation teams, asset recovery and a multi-jurisdictional emergency response under single command.
The European Public Prosecutor's Office and the competences at play
The European Public Prosecutor's Office, established by Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 and operational since 1 June 2021, has competence only for offences affecting the financial interests of the Union, as defined by Directive (EU) 2017/1371, known as the PIF Directive: fraud, corruption, misappropriation and the money laundering connected with them. Identifying the competence actually at play, whether national, European or combined, determines the defence strategy and the rights that may be invoked.
Joint investigation teams
A joint investigation team brings together, on the basis of an agreement, the authorities of two or more States to conduct investigations jointly into transnational facts, with direct sharing of information and evidence; Eurojust supports its establishment and operation. This framework accelerates the circulation of evidence and calls for particular vigilance as to the rights of the defence and the admissibility of the material gathered.
The Crisis Room, the multi-jurisdictional emergency response
The Crisis Room is the firm's emergency response facility. When an investigation, a search, an asset freeze, an arrest or a media crisis arises simultaneously in several jurisdictions, the priority is an immediate confidential characterisation and the establishment of centralised coordination, legal, informational and institutional, under single command.
In a multi-jurisdictional crisis, the first decisive act is not a written submission: it is the establishment of a single command over every front.
Risk patterns
Recurring configurations of exposure
Identifiable situations, in which the initial characterisation and the order of the steps taken decide the outcome.
Search or seizure on behalf of a foreign authority
A measure is executed in one jurisdiction for the benefit of a foreign authority, sometimes beyond the scope of the request or in disregard of legal professional privilege. The immediate characterisation of its legal basis and the pursuit of remedies determine whether the challenge succeeds.
Parallel criminal proceedings in several States
The same matter is prosecuted simultaneously in several jurisdictions. The absence of coordination produces contradictions between statements and written submissions, which the authorities and the opposing parties exploit.
Commercial dispute recast as criminal prosecution
A business dispute with a public entity or a competitor is artificially criminalised, under characterisations of fraud, corruption or money laundering. The task is to demonstrate a purpose extraneous to ordinary criminal cooperation.
Asset freeze and transnational recovery
Assets are frozen, seized or claimed in the course of a transnational recovery. The defence of the assets and the challenge to the measures are built in step with the criminal strand, in several jurisdictions at once.
Conflict of interest between the company and its executives
Cooperation or self-reporting that is favourable to the legal entity weakens the position of individuals, or vice versa. The absence of separate counsel and of an anticipated strategy creates additional exposure.
Simultaneous multi-jurisdictional crisis
Investigation, search, asset freeze, arrest and media exposure occur at the same time in several jurisdictions. Without single command and immediate characterisation, the situation slips beyond the reach of any strategy.
What the firm puts into practice
The method
A sequence, from immediate characterisation to crisis management, conducted case by case.
01
Immediate characterisation and securing the position
Characterise without delay the framework of each act, authority, treaty basis, scope and safeguards, and secure the position: preserve legal professional privilege, frame the interviews, verify the regularity of the measures and pursue the appropriate remedies within the time limits.
02
Mapping of proceedings and forums
Identify all proceedings, open or foreseeable, in each jurisdiction, together with the competent authorities, the pending requests for mutual legal assistance, the risks of extradition and the parallel fronts. This map dictates the sequence of action and establishes single command.
03
Evidence building and internal investigation
Establish the facts through a properly framed internal investigation, protect the confidentiality of the findings, document the chronology and organise the evidence according to what persuades each forum. Evidence is built for each authority seised, not indiscriminately.
04
Strategy of cooperation or confrontation
Decide, with full knowledge of the facts, whether to cooperate, to negotiate a convention judiciaire d'intérêt public or a deferred prosecution agreement, or to fight; assess the effects of each option on the legal entity, on the executives and on the other fronts.
05
Disciplined multi-jurisdictional coordination
Impose a single strategy and communication discipline on every front, bring local counsel together under a coordinating command, and prevent any contradiction between statements, written submissions and responses to requests for mutual legal assistance.
06
Crisis management and institutional environment
Activate, when urgency so requires, a centralised crisis unit, manage reputational and media exposure, and structure the dialogue with the authorities and institutions concerned, without ever sacrificing the rights of the defence.
Expert work and strategy
Expert reports, opinions and overall strategy
Beyond the defence engagement, an expert architect's offering in international criminal cooperation and public international law.
An offering distinct from the defence engagement
The firm may intervene without necessarily acting as lead counsel, in support of criminal defence counsel already instructed, a legal department, a company or an institution, where the case requires expertise in public international law, international criminal cooperation or human rights that some teams lack in-house.
Deliverables
Mapping of proceedings and forums, memoranda on mutual legal assistance, extradition and transnational ne bis in idem, analyses of the competence of an international mechanism or of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, notes on comparative legal professional privilege and the confidentiality of the internal investigation, and expert opinions for judicial or arbitral proceedings.
Recipients
This work may be intended for a company, an executive, a legal department, domestic or foreign criminal defence counsel, a litigation team, an institution or a court.
The firm's value lies not in promising an outcome, but in building the legal architecture of a position within a field of forces, upstream and in the shadow of the case.
Effects obtained or sought
Anonymised results and effects sought
The firm does not publish named case studies. The confidentiality of its engagements is a non-negotiable condition. The results below are presented by category of effect obtained or sought in matters of international investigation, transnational crime and crisis management.
Coercive framework characterised
Immediate characterisation of the investigative and mutual legal assistance acts, the applicable safeguards and the remedies, the foundation of the entire subsequent strategy.
Measure challenged or confined
Challenge to a search, a seizure or a freeze executed for a foreign authority, where the measure exceeds the request or disregards legal professional privilege.
Proceedings mapped and fronts coordinated
Mapping of all proceedings in each jurisdiction and alignment of positions under a single command, with no exploitable contradiction.
Internal investigation secured
Conduct of a properly framed internal investigation, preserving the confidentiality of the findings and the rights of the persons interviewed, without producing the evidence for the prosecution.
Negotiated justice assessed and structured
Analysis of the merits and scope of self-reporting, of a convention judiciaire d'intérêt public or of a deferred prosecution agreement, and of its effects on the individuals concerned.
Assets defended and recovery under control
Defence of frozen or claimed assets and alignment of the criminal strand with transnational recovery, across several jurisdictions.
Expert reports and expert opinions
Confidential studies and opinions in international law and criminal cooperation, produced for proceedings or for a decision-making body.
Multi-jurisdictional crisis brought back under control
Activation of a centralised crisis unit, immediate characterisation and coordination of the legal, institutional and informational fronts.
A selection of configurations handled
By category and without any identifying element. They illustrate the nature of the cases, not their outcome, and constitute neither a promise nor a guarantee of results.
The legal framework relied upon
Texts, safeguards and cooperation
The texts, procedural safeguards and cooperation mechanisms on which the firm's practice rests.
01
Texts and standards
European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters (1959) and its protocols; European Union instruments on mutual legal assistance and mutual recognition; United Nations Convention against Corruption, Mérida (2003), in particular its Chapter V on asset recovery; United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Palermo (2000); Law of 9 December 2016 establishing the convention judiciaire d'intérêt public; Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 establishing the European Public Prosecutor's Office and Directive (EU) 2017/1371 (PIF Directive).
02
Safeguards and rights of the defence
Principle of ne bis in idem, Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 to the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement and Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union; guarantees of a fair trial and of the rights of the defence; rule of speciality; protection of legal professional privilege and of the confidentiality of the internal investigation, in their variations across jurisdictions.
03
Mechanisms and cooperation
European Public Prosecutor's Office, operational since 1 June 2021; Eurojust and joint investigation teams; cooperation with the National Central Bureaux and the INTERPOL mechanisms for the location of persons, notices, diffusions and the police coordination that precedes surrender or extradition proceedings, which fall to State and judicial authorities; StAR initiative of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for asset recovery.
04
Doctrine and guidelines
Practical guide to anti-corruption internal investigations published by the Agence française anticorruption and the Parquet national financier; guidelines and recommendations of the international organisations competent on corruption, money laundering and criminal cooperation. The references specific to each case are verified before any use in litigation.
European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO)EurojustUNODC · Asset recovery (StAR)
When pressure is brought to bear on several fronts at once, the first decision can freeze the case. Responding to a measure without having characterised its legal basis, cooperating in one jurisdiction without having gauged the effect on the others, conducting an internal investigation without securing its confidentiality, or allowing two fronts to contradict each other: each of these errors can hand the prosecution its evidence and close off options irreversibly. The analysis phase determines the outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Mutual assistance, investigation, negotiated justice: the essentials
Preparing the first contact
Useful documents for an initial analysis
There is no need to send a complete file at the first contact. Certain elements make it possible to characterise the situation quickly.
- Concise description of the situation and of the proceedings under way
- Brief chronology of the facts and decisions
- State or States involved and authorities seised
- Known requests for mutual assistance, searches, seizures or freezes
- Extradition requests or arrest warrants, where applicable
- Applicable sanctions measures or asset freezes
- Counsel already instructed in the jurisdictions concerned
- Court decisions already handed down
- Existence of an internal investigation and its scope
- Known critical deadlines
- Reputational or media exposure
- Institutional sources documenting the context
The purpose of the first exchange is to assess the urgency and the relevance of an intervention. It does not, in itself, constitute a full opinion on the prospects of success.
Modes of intervention
Six ways of engaging the firm
For the party concerned, for counsel already instructed, for judicial or arbitral proceedings, as a preventive measure, or for the referring firm that outsources an expert opinion.
01
Strategic counsel, lead counsel
Lead counsel, responsible for the overall strategic architecture: characterisation of the framework, mapping of proceedings and fora, sequencing of actions, coordination of local counsel and single command across every front. Suited to highly complex transnational matters requiring a unified vision.
02
Co-counsel with a criminal defence firm
Alongside a firm already instructed, where the national proceedings must be placed within an international strategy: mutual legal assistance, extradition, transnational ne bis in idem, interplay with the European Public Prosecutor's Office and parallel proceedings. The instructed counsel retains the conduct of the national defence.
03
Confidential expert support
Defined assignments on behalf of a referring firm: a memorandum on mutual legal assistance or on the competence of a mechanism, a mapping of proceedings and risks, a note on comparative legal professional privilege or on the confidentiality of the internal investigation, within a contractually defined scope.
04
Expert witness and professional opinion
Expert opinion on questions of international criminal cooperation, the rights of the defence, transnational ne bis in idem or public international law, for judicial or arbitral proceedings, with a report compliant with the applicable standards and oral testimony available.
05
Targeted engagement on a strategic front
Taking charge of a specific front within a strategy coordinated by other counsel: challenge to a mutual assistance measure, defence against extradition, referral to an international mechanism, the asset recovery dimension, with reporting to the coordinating counsel.
06
Monitoring, anticipation and prevention
Preventive arrangements for an exposed company or executive: exposure mapping, monitoring of investigation signals, framing of compliance programmes and of the internal investigation, and a protective architecture put in place before escalation.
Contact by profile
Find the right point of entry
Depending on your profile, an initial confidential orientation discussion, without mutual commitment.
Companies and legal departments
International investigation, request for mutual assistance, search, negotiated justice, internal investigation and multi-jurisdictional coordination.
Executives and corporate officers
Personal exposure to prosecution, conflict of interest with the company, transnational criminal defence and travel security.
Exposed individuals and their families
Search, asset freeze, arrest abroad, request for mutual assistance or extradition targeting an individual.
Criminal defence firms and correspondent counsel
International dimension of a criminal case, co-counsel, confidential expert support and expert opinion.
Family offices and funds
Exposure of an executive or an asset to a transnational economic investigation or to asset recovery proceedings.
Institutions and organisations
Criminal cooperation, interplay with international mechanisms and structured institutional dialogue.
Related practice areas
Continue within the firm's ecosystem
International investigations intersect with INTERPOL and extradition, lawfare, sanctions, business and immunities. Related Praxis resources and Corpus entries.
A transnational investigation is not won measure by measure: it is won through mastery of the fronts, the sequencing of actions and a single command.
An investigation to characterise, a crisis to bring back under control?
Company, executive, exposed individual, family office, institution or correspondent criminal defence firm: in a transnational investigation, the useful window often precedes the irreversible, and the initial characterisation determines what follows. Initial confidential orientation discussion, without mutual commitment. In French, English and Spanish.