With glorious sunshine streaming through the windows of the Mercury Room at The Fairmont Singapore, The Legal 500 and Jones Day Breakfast Roundtable got underway in the best possible setting, and as guests mingled with fresh coffee there was great anticipation about the coming session. This was not least because Jones Day’s global disputes practice leader Sion Richards had flown in from London to talk through some of the recent eye-catching (and, as they would see later, almost unbelievable) enforcement and recovery cases that he and the rest of Jones Day have worked on in the recent past.   

A packed room of general counsel was amassed, all of whom were looking forward to an informative discussion on retrieving stolen assets with some of the most accomplished recovery experts in the legal world. With Singapore partner-in-charge Sushma Jobanputra watching on, the morning’s session began. 

Sion Richards and asset tracing and judgment enforcement expert James Fidler, a Jones Day associate, began proceedings by outlining some of the methods of retrieving seemingly irrecoverable assets lost to fraud or recalcitrant debtors. They then moved on to discussing some of the highly complicated international cases they have worked on, which led to a number of probing questions from those in attendance.  

The discussion was then widened to the whole room, including Jones Day Partners Tim Cullen, Zac Sharpe, Vinay Kurien and Dennis Barsky. While acknowledging that the advent of cybercrime, the international payment network, cryptocurrencies and sophisticated online criminal syndicates have made enforcement and recovery a more daunting, chaotic and expensive prospect than ever before, many were impressed with the results that a well-funded investigation can achieve in the right circumstances.  

Essentially, if the wealth lost to fraud or recalcitrant debtors is large enough to warrant the expense of hiring top-notch recovery teams, there are options.