2019

Even boxing promoters would be envious of the hype surrounding blockchain technology. Blockchain will revolutionize the way business is conducted, end corruption in elections, let you know where the food you ate came from, and, generally, re-shape the world order. Or so the marketing goes. Virtually all offshore jurisdictions are attempting to become the go-to jurisdiction for FinTech start-ups and some, like Bermuda, have gone all-in. In this session, we will tell you why almost everything you read about blockchain is wrong and explain what the technology can potentially be used for and what it can't.

Our panel will discuss how to go about obtaining litigation funding, the criteria that must be met, the types of claims that litigation funders are interested in, and how litigation funding is structured.

Boiler rooms are international fraud schemes that operate with near impunity while defrauding investors around the world of hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In this presentation, experts in both federal law enforcement and private investigations will share their unique perspectives on combating the issue. In the first part of the session, a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent will discuss how federal agents locate, gather evidence, and prosecute overseas boiler rooms, as well as share examples of successful cases. The Agent will also discuss how the modern day investigation requires a strong working relationship with the private banking industry as well as cooperation between multiple foreign governmental entities. In the second part of the session, a private investigator and internationally recognized expert in the field of boiler rooms will discuss how the Philippines and other parts of SE Asia are hotbeds of criminality, places where expatriate investment fraudsters operate boiler rooms as they set about swindling foreigners living in the world's major countries, many of whom are pensioners. In addition, the investigator will discuss who is responsible, pay-offs to police, judges, and others in authority, assaults, murders, and other related issues. The investigator will also show you how to use alternative methods to recover assets, thereby avoiding long and costly litigation in jurisdictions with poor judicial systems.

London-based financier Bill Browder has positioned himself as an anti-corruption crusader who will stop at nothing to avenge the death of his former tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009. Browder claims Magnitsky was tortured and murdered by corrupt Russian prison guards because he blew the whistle on a $230 million tax fraud committed against the state using companies that were stolen from Browder. He has been the driving force behind new laws in the USA and other countries that are aimed at Russians and others who are involved in corrupt activity. Critics of Browder, however, have accused him of being a fantasist, pointing out what they claim are inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his Magnitsky story, his tax fraud conviction in Russia, and his pre-Magnitsky history of business dealings they claim are questionable. In this session, we will attempt to determine fact vs. fiction.

This session will look at how different jurisdictions are regulating or seeking to regulate cryptocurrencies, including Initial Coin Offerings, and analyze legal rulings so far in this fledgling industry.

Obtaining a judgment in a British Commonwealth jurisdiction, whether in the United Kingdom or one of its offshore territories, is no easy feat. The sad truth is that wining the case might have been the easy part. Enforcing a judgment when there are few or no assets in the jurisdiction issuing the writ can involve complex cross-border litigation. Execution of a judgment is even more difficult when assets, or individuals subject to the judgment, are in the United States, where a web of federal and fifty different state laws can stymie even the most tenacious judgment-holder. This session will explore the process and methods to enforce foreign judgments in the U.S., and impart practical tips to do so quickly and efficiently. It will also show how U.S.-based agencies can reach offshore activity.

This session will look at emerging key issues and latest developments affecting the litigation funding industry.

If the western media is to be believed, Russia is an out-of-control country that poses a realistic threat to global stability, whether by the poisoning of dissidents, computer hacking, corruption on a grand scale or other means. This session will go beyond the hype and propaganda and seek to determine fact vs. fiction.

Several years after major US criminal and regulatory agencies adopted whistleblower rewards programs, this session will analyze how they are performing and how much money has been paid out. It will include looking at the increasing number of rewards applications being submitted on behalf of offshore whistleblowers.

Leading international fraud and value recovery attorneys will take your questions and discuss emerging and dominant issues that impact your ability to be successful and effective. This session is intended to be informal and interactive and represents an opportunity for you to have your questions answered by experts who have 'been there, seen it, done it'.

Leading international fraud and value recovery attorneys will take your questions and discuss emerging and dominant issues that impact your ability to be successful and effective. This session is intended to be informal and interactive and represents

In this session, whistleblowers' attorney Steve Kohn will discuss how his client, Howard Wilkinson, blew the whistle on his former employer, Denmark-based Danske Bank, which has been implicated in a €200 billion Russian money laundering scandal and is now being criminally investigated in the UK, US, France, and Estonia. Steve will discuss opportunities for whistleblowers to become multi-millionaires by exposing wrongdoing in global financial institutions and other types of companies, both in the United States and overseas.

Before he retired in 2015, Sen. Carl Levin was the scourge of the offshore world, regularly overseeing investigations into financial malfeasance. In this session, Sen. Levin's chief counsel for many of those investigations, Elise Bean, will open the lid on their financial investigations, which ultimately led to ground-breaking legislation such as The PATRIOT Act and FATCA.

This session will look at examples of corruption, theft, judicial abuse, and the detention of foreign businesspeople conducting business in Dubai and other cities in the Arabian Gulf region.

Chief Don Fort, of IRS Criminal Investigation, will tell you why the world is getting smaller for tax criminals. With the formation of the new and innovative Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement last year, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands have found ways to share information, work joint investigations, and move towards criminal proceedings in dozens of cases. Criminals and enablers of tax crimes alike should be on notice that their days are limited.