From Risk to Response: Managing Global Enforcement Exposure

Clyde & Co was pleased to participate in the American Bar Association's White Collar Crime Conference, one of the leading international forums for prosecutors, regulators, in-house counsel and legal practitioners. The conference brought together speakers from across the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, India, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East.

Australia's Managing Partner, Rebecca Kelly, chaired the session "Hot Topics in International White-Collar Crime", leading a discussion on global enforcement trends, cross-border investigations, financial crime risks and the increasing cooperation between regulators across jurisdictions.

One of the clearest messages from the conference was that white collar crime enforcement is becoming more global, more technology enabled and more focused on corporate accountability.

Conduct that was once viewed primarily as a compliance or financial crime issue is now increasingly being assessed through a national security lens. This is particularly evident in areas such as sanctions, export controls, money laundering, transnational criminal networks and access to sensitive technologies. As a result, regulators are expecting organisations to demonstrate not only compliance with legal obligations, but also mature governance, robust risk management and effective oversight by boards and senior executives. The adequacy of an organisation's compliance framework is now often as important as the underlying conduct itself.

Several themes stood out.

Anti-money laundering (AML) obligations continue to expand. Compliance requirements are extending beyond traditional financial institutions to gatekeeper professions and businesses, with regulators expecting more sophisticated compliance frameworks, enhanced due diligence and stronger ongoing monitoring. Several speakers observed that financial crime is increasingly being addressed through coordinated cross-border enforcement efforts such as Operation Frontier +, requiring organisations to develop more coordinated and internationally focused approaches to AML compliance, customer due diligence and financial crime risk management.

Trade risk has become a mainstream white collar crime issue. Organisations are increasingly required to understand their supply chains, verify end-users, manage export control obligations and navigate complex sanctions regimes. Many multinational businesses are experiencing the practical challenge of complying with overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, legal requirements across jurisdictions. The recent Singapore Nvidia-related investigation demonstrates how issues involving export controls, emerging technologies, AI-related infrastructure and fraud can rapidly attract multi-jurisdictional regulatory and enforcement scrutiny.

Technology was a dominant theme throughout the conference. While artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and other digital tools are enhancing the detection, investigation and prosecution of misconduct for white collar matters, they are also enabling criminal activity to occur with unprecedented speed and sophistication. Law enforcement speakers noted that scammers and other criminal actors can move funds and assets across multiple jurisdictions within minutes, significantly reducing the window for intervention. As a result, there is growing emphasis on real-time collaboration between law enforcement agencies, regulators, financial institutions and other private sector stakeholders to identify suspicious activity and disrupt criminal conduct before assets disappear.

Edwin Tong SC, Singapore’s Minister for Law and Second Minister for Home Affairs, highlighted the work of the Anti-Scam Command as an example of this approach. He explained how close operational cooperation between the police and financial institutions enables accounts to be frozen rapidly when suspected scam activity is identified, improving the prospects of asset recovery and reducing harm to victims.

The discussion explored the ethical governance implications of AI adoption, including legal privilege considerations (particularly following the Heppner decision in the United States¹), appropriate oversight and the standard of care expected when AI tools are deployed within legal and compliance functions.  Importantly for all practioners the court determined AI-generated materials could not attract privilege because AI is not an person, the AI queries were not made confidentially to obtain legal advice, and the documents were created unsupervised rather than under the direction of legal counsel.

Whistleblowers and organisational culture are becoming increasingly prominent features of the global enforcement landscape. Across jurisdictions, many significant investigations now originate from employee reports, internal complaints and other protected disclosures rather than regulator detection. Speakers observed an increase in whistleblower activity, supported by enhanced whistleblower protections and, in the United States, financial incentive programs designed to encourage reporting. As regulators place greater emphasis on organisational culture and accountability, the effectiveness of a company's whistleblower framework is increasingly viewed as an indicator of its broader governance environment. 

Equally important is the response once a concern is raised. Increasingly, organisations are being scrutinised not only for the alleged misconduct itself, but for the timeliness, independence and effectiveness of their response, with poor whistleblower management carrying significant legal, regulatory and reputational consequences.

Underlying many of these discussions was the growing degree of international cooperation between regulators and law enforcement agencies. Data sharing, coordinated investigations and parallel enforcement actions are becoming increasingly common, requiring organisations to manage regulatory risk on a global rather than jurisdiction specific basis. 

The themes emerging from the conference closely reflect the findings of Clyde & Co's Corporate Risk Radar report. The report identifies regulatory enforcement, financial crime, geopolitical instability, technological disruption and governance failures as among the most significant risks facing organisations in today's operating environment. The conference demonstrated how these risks are becoming increasingly interconnected, with regulators taking a more coordinated and technology enabled approach to enforcement and placing greater emphasis on organisational accountability.

The message for board members and senior executives was clear. Organisations must look beyond compliance with individual laws and regulatory frameworks. Instead, they should focus on building governance, risk and compliance programmes that are agile, globally coordinated and capable of responding to an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving enforcement landscape. Those organisations that proactively identify and manage emerging risks will be better positioned to navigate heightened regulatory scrutiny and enforcement activity across multiple jurisdictions.

¹United States v. Heppner, No. 25 Cr. 503 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 17, 2026)