Key takeaways from the Asset and Recovery Asia conference

As my 1st international conference, the Asset Recovery Asia Conference recently held in Ho Chi Minh City was certainly insightful and memorable. A few things that resonate with me personally which I took home from the conference from the speakers and the delegates are the following:-

1. In today's world, cross border asset recovery actions are more important than ever given that one can now approve transaction with just one click of a button from a handheld device. As one can depart with one's assets so easily, it is also important that cross border recovery should also be easily available to take into consideration unauthorised transactions. Taking this into account, I realised how much importance has been given to international arbitration in such an arena, co-existing with each country's legal system giving assurance to commercial investors and stakeholders.

2. The law may not be the same in different jurisdiction but greed in human nature essentially are. More often than not, this give rise to fraudulent transactions that mandate actions to recover assets. It is insightful to see how each jurisdiction tackle fraudulent dissipation of assets and the various tools made available for one to recover such assets. The finer details of such tools in every jurisdiction may differ in terms of legal requirement and procedure but interestingly, when seen from a bird's eye point of view, what is common in the tools is the goal behind them, preservation and recovery of such assets.

3. Technology makes committing fraud easier for perpetrators. It also makes fraud more sophisticated. There is no one single strategy adopted to commit fraud, so much so that I believe that perpetrators adapts to technology much faster to commit fraud in comparison to governments adopting technology to combat them. With this in mind, it was insightful from Atan Mustaffa, a High Court Judge of of Malaya when giving his talk on how the Bench in West Malaysia approaches a case involving fraud. It is noteworthy to know how he as a judge, with the legal burden to discharge fraud in mind, balances various type evidence to decide whether such burden has been discharged.

4. Fraud committed using corporations to hide the perpetrators under the well known legal principle of "separate legal entities" are not effective. Most jurisdictions, if not all recognise that fraud are committed by real people and not artificial entities. Piercing or lifting corporate veils are common tools employed to actually find the actual perpetrators liable for their crimes and also to assist in tracing assets for recovery purposes. Such tools exist regardless whether the corporations concerned are solvent or otherwise. I am happy to meet so many people and having to make new friends during my time in Vietnam. I look forward to attend the conference next year organised by Asset Recovery Series!