BakerHostetler has "real depth and breadth of knowledge in cross-border fraud and asset recovery."
– Legal 500 2018
BakerHostetler is a recognized leader in handling complex international insolvencies and in tracing and recovering assets. Clients rely on, and benefit from, our extensive experience to strategically maximize their positions in complex civil and criminal disputes. Our attorneys represent multinationals, sovereign states, global organizations, and private investors, advocating for client interests in virtually every country in the world.
We are bankruptcy and insolvency practitioners, international litigators, former prosecutors, and tax lawyers with significant experience investigating and detangling complex asset protection schemes in the context of cross-border litigation, including piercing sophisticated offshore trusts and structures, negotiating discovery across varying privacy regimes, and assisting clients in navigating potential resulting liabilities.
Our experience also includes the implementation and use of multilateral cooperation agreements, international conventions, tax treaties, and myriad discovery devices. We have extensive knowledge of varying confidentiality and banking secrecy laws around the world, including experience with the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, tax treaties, and tax information exchange agreements (TIEA), which provide states with powerful new means to gather evidence of financial wrongdoing.
Who We Are
Our team includes attorneys who have served as ambassadors and members of Congress and represented the United States on behalf of the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of the Treasury, and the Internal Revenue Service as well as other government entities. These lawyers bring considerable experience in the operational and policy aspects of international asset recovery and forfeiture, money laundering investigations, fraud investigations, and bribery and corruption matters. We have assisted clients in resolving international disputes that might require government assistance.
Case Study: The Global Liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC
The most prominent example of BakerHostetler’s success in international insolvency, asset tracing, and recovery is the unprecedented liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS). As court-appointed counsel to Securities Investor Protection Act (SIPA) Trustee Irving H. Picard, we have been working to unravel, deconstruct, and litigate one of the largest and most complex financial frauds in U.S. history – Bernard L. Madoff’s decades-long global Ponzi scheme. With more than $10.5 billion traced and recovered for victims to date, the BakerHostetler Madoff team has exceeded all expectations for recovery, utilizing their diverse experience in complex business litigation, bankruptcy law, white collar criminal investigation, securities litigation, e-discovery, and corporate finance.