Patrick O’Donnell addressed attendees at the international LAWorld conference today in Cape Town on new developments in extraterritorial enforcement by the U.S. government of U.S. law.
Mr. O’Donnell provided and overview of the existing laws, including the extent to which the U.S. enforces its laws, especially criminal laws and related investigative provisions, to conduct occurring entirely or primarily overseas. He also covered new developments in U.S. extraterritorial law enforcement, including:
- The amendment of the U.S. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to allow service of a criminal indictment and summons overseas by email or any other method reasonably calculated to provide notice.
- Banca Privada d’Andorra and the U.S. summary cut off of access to dollars to effectively close a foreign bank.
- The Microsoft subpoena case and U.S. efforts to penetrate other countries’ privacy laws to obtain records stored outside the U.S. by affiliates of U.S. companies.
Patrick O’Donnell is a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis in Washington, D.C., where he co-chairs the firm’s audits and enforcement practice, representing clients ranging from private companies to public officials and individuals, in a wide variety of substantive cases, including matters involving the False Claims Act, tax evasion, “off-label” use of pharmaceuticals, antitrust, securities fraud, bribery, extortion, environmental crimes, accounting fraud, and public corruption.