Investigations & Sanctions Hughes Hubbard’s award-winning and multilingual global investigations team includes a number of former government officials and is known for having the talent, experience and depth to represent clients in more than 90 countries. In 2023, our team continued representing confidential clients in front of just about every major regulating body, including obtaining three releases from World Bank sanctions, and performed diligent assessments on sanction risks for many of our deal clients.
Firm Named to Global Investigations Review’s GIR 30 List
Hughes Hubbard was named to Global Investigations Review’s GIR 30 list, a ranking of the best law firms for complex multijurisdictional corporate investigations. The ranking measures firms’ institutional strengths based on a range of factors, including a firm’s reach, its caseload and appearances before government authorities. “Hughes Hubbard is set apart from U.S. rivals by its thriving office in Paris and its work for the World Bank,” the publication wrote.
GIR highlighted our work on a variety of matters, including advising telecommunications company Ericsson in an independent review of the adequacy of the company's prior disclosures before and after it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2019. It also discussed Hughes Hubbard’s representation of building material company Holcim Group, a Swiss multinational company that manufactures building materials, in its French subsidiary LaFarge SA’s guilty plea and agreement to pay $778 million to resolve allegations that it had collaborated to pay ISIS to continue operating a cement plant in Syria.
GIR also discussed Hughes Hubbard’s “impressive track record with multilateral development banks in 2022,” including monitorships of two Chinese state-owned companies mandated by the World Bank, and our work for cardiovascular research company Biotronik in reaching a $13 million settlement in which it admitted to violating the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks to physicians to encourage them to use the company’s products.
Enforcement Resolved for Major Chinese Company
Hughes Hubbard represented a major Chinese company in an investigation by the Asian Development Bank into alleged fraud on an ADB-financed project. Hughes Hubbard helped the company obtain a sanction shorter than the recommended minimum period of debarment and meet all post-sanction conditions for reinstatement as an ADB-eligible contractor.
FCPA Investigation for Manufacturing Company
Hughes Hubbard represented a publicly traded manufacturing company in its response to an internal report that said a subsidiary had made payments to customs officials in West Africa. The firm assisted with the company’s internal investigation, which included document review, interviews and a final report issued in January 2024.