Companies, organisations and senior management increasingly face governmental investigations, governance issues and disclosure challenges. Often, these are triggered by far-reaching legal, regulatory or tax provisions, the occurrence of unforeseen events (e.g., fraud, litigation, disasters), occurrences of whistleblowing, sudden movements in securities prices or shareholder demands.

These situations can pose a vital threat to the existence of companies and can expose its bodies to very significant risks. It is important in such situations that companies maintain their ability to swiftly identify the relevant facts, make a full assessment of their impact on the organisation and take appropriate remedial actions.

Our Internal and Regulatory Investigations Practice assists clients in efficiently conducting complex internal investigations, both on their own initiative or in response to inquiries or investigations by governmental authorities, whistleblower claims or shareholder demands.

We cover a broad range of industries, including financial services, securities, pharmaceuticals, media and technology services, and a broad range of issues, including antitrust, anticorruption, violation of banking or capital market rules, disclosure and accounting issues, asset valuation issues, tax issues, civil or criminal misconduct and executive misconduct.

Our expertise and experience enable us to work effectively with our clients to anticipate and respond to the various risks and challenges. We also represent businesses and individuals in a wide range of criminal and civil investigations and proceedings, including special audits under Swiss law.

The firm’s Internal and Regulatory Investigations Practice includes more than 31 attorneys, from all major practice areas including capital markets, competition, corporate, financial services, IT, litigation, and tax. For each matter, a tailor-made team is assembled comprising partners, associates and junior lawyers from the relevant practice areas who are trained to provide the highest quality of work and focus.

Our investigations experience includes the following areas:

• Assisting clients in connection with internal investigations covering possible violations of a wide range of regulations, laws and industries
• Advising and assisting clients in connection with dawn-raids, leniency applications and anti-trust investigations
• Advising clients in connection with a wide spectrum of fraud type of laws and regulations, including capital market matters and insider trading
• Helping clients establish risk management and compliance programmes
• Representing clients before regulatory authorities and prosecutors
• Advising and representing clients in complex international judicial and administrative assistance proceedings