Diverging Sanctions Making Cross-Border Probes Challenging, Law Firm Says

Multinational companies conducting internal sanctions investigations are facing a range of challenges interviewing employees due to a rising “divergence” among different governments’ sanctions regimes, Baker McKenzie said in a June client alert. Sanctions investigations “require a nuanced understanding of the applicable and often multi-faceted sanctions laws” across the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and other European nations, the law firm said. Investigators, for example, may face hurdles from data protection laws in the EU, and they may need to take into account “cultural norms and language barriers” when conducting cross-border interviews. “Cultural customs may require the interviewer to conform to cultural norms,” the firm said, “meaning that interpretation of non-verbal employee behavior for example, should be modulated accordingly.”