Bettina Knoetzl has been a trial lawyer for 25 years, focusing on fraud and asset tracing, business crime, investor protection, liability claims and corporate disputes. She is one of the top litigators in the country, continuously ranked as a trial lawyer and as true asset-tracing specialist, recognized by the bench and bar, with superior knowledge of how to locate, freeze and recover misappropriated assets. Bettina has successfully defended corporate and executive clients in a huge range of business crime investigations, including fraud, corruption, mismanagement and insider trading allegations. She has a distinguished track record of winning for both companies and private clients in both discrete and high-profile public trials. At the start of 2016 Bettina carefully selected individuals and founded the eponymous firm KNOETZL, entirely focused on dispute resolution, business crime, investigations, asset recovery, compliance and crisis management.

Her achievements in asset-tracing and recovery have been recognized across the globe. In 2017 Who’s Who Legal called her “Lawyer of the Year” in Asset Tracing. She is a “Thought Leader” and ranked in the Top Tier by national and international directories such as Chambers or Trend for more than a decade. With her vast understanding and experience of cross-border work, she is a repeatedly, sought-after co-counsel by top-tier global law firms.

Bettina is the immediate past Co-Chair of the Litigation Committee of the International Bar Association, the President of the Advisory Board of Transparency International (Austrian Chapter), the exclusive Austrian representative of the ICC-FraudNet and Member of the Advisory Board of ZBP, the Career Center of the Vienna University of Economics and Business and teaches at the Lawyers’ Academy Litigation & DR skills. She is consistently ranked in the top tier by the leading international directories and is currently recognized as “Most Highly Regarded Individuals” in “Litigation”, “Asset Tracing” and “White Collar Crime”.

Thomas is a partner of KNOETZL and heads the firm’s White-Collar Crime Department. He focuses his practice on business crime matters, asset recovery and international litigation.

Expert in all areas of white-collar crime, Thomas has in-depth experience in representing corporate, governmental and high net worth individual clients through criminal proceedings and related civil cases, especially in aggressive pursuit of injured parties compensation for damages due to embezzlement, fraud and money laundering. Some of Thomas’s cases have been high in profile, requiring a sometimes-delicate handling of the press. Thomas also routinely acts as defense counsel and advises on major criminal investigations for individuals and international corporations, inter alia involving allegations of price-fixing, bribery, serious fraud or bankruptcy offences.

Thomas regularly publishes articles and academic works on subjects concerning corporate criminal liability, anti-trust offences and leniency programs.

He holds a degree of the University of Vienna (2010) and is a member of the Vienna Bar.

Jeff Lane is a commercial litigation Partner at Tanner De Witt and has been practising as a lawyer in Hong Kong for over 25 years. Jeff is well-known for his work in corporate fraud and asset tracing in domestic and multi-jurisdiction investigations, white collar crime and dealing with recovery proceedings and regulatory investigations with the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) and the Commercial Crime Bureau (CCB). He has written several articles about dispute resolution and fraud and asset tracing and regularly speaks on these issues in local and regional seminars. Jeff is recognised in a number of prominent international guides including Asia-Pacific Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners identifying him as one of Hong Kong’s leading litigation lawyers and he has been the Hong Kong representative of FraudNet since 2008.

Tanner De Witt, established in 1999 is a full service independent business law firm with more than thirty lawyers. The litigation team has enjoyed significant success in carrying out multi-jurisdiction fraud and asset tracing investigations. Other practice areas in which Tanner De Witt offers legal advice and representation are corporate and commercial; insolvency and restructuring; labour and employment; financial services regulation and compliance; criminal, including white collar crime; family and private client services; and hospitality, including liquor licensing.

Alejandro Pignataro is the Founding Partner of Pignataro Abogados, where he leads the Asset Tracing & Recovery Practice. He obtained his LL.M. in American Law with a concentration in International Business Practice from Boston University in 2003, and his JD from the University of Costa Rica in 2000.

Alejandro has devoted over 20 years of professional practice to provide legal counsel to foreign corporations and investors in Costa Rica. His expertise is in Corporate Law. Furthermore, he frequently serves as local counsel to receiverships and private counsel in multi-jurisdictional fraud cases, directing the domestic legal proceedings, interfacing with the enforcement agencies involved, and attending to the administration of the Receivership Estate.

The Firm’s Fraud and Business work team is assisted by Associates with vast experience in litigation and arbitration in Costa Rica.

Mr. Pignataro is the Costa Rican representative for ICC FraudNet. He is fluent in English, Spanish and French.

PIGNATARO ABOGADOS was established in 2015 as a boutique corporate law firm committed to providing top-tier legal advice to select corporate and individual clients doing business in Costa Rica and the Caribbean Basin region. The firm brings together a group of leading corporate law practitioners and civil litigation experts with an insightful understanding of the local market and its legal challenges. Our practice focuses on this specific array of fields of expertise in order to guarantee highly technical, pertinent legal advice with a business perspective.

Guillermo Jorge is a partner at Bruchou, Fernandez Madero & Lombardi, a top-tier full service law firm in Argentina, where he leads the practice of Compliance, Internal Investigations & Business Crime.

Prior to joining Bruchou, Guillermo was the founding partner of Governance Latam in Argentina, a top compliance and investigations boutique. Guillermo has more than 20 years of experience representing victims of fraud and corruption and in preventing and enforcing anti-bribery and anti-money laundering standards. He has a unique experience in helping Governments to set up and train anti-bribery and anti-money laundering agencies across Latin America as well as in helping companies to establish and implement governance and compliance structures.

Guillermo has an extensive involvement in the field of asset recovery. He has served as an expert on several Working Groups at the United Nations and at the World Bank. In that capacity, he has written the Chapter on Asset Recovery of the “Technical Guide to the UNCAC” (https://http://www.unodc.org/documents/corruption/Technical_Guide_UNCAC.pdf) and the Handbook on Asset Recovery for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (http://publications.apec.org/publication-detail.php?pub_id=1666). Guillermo has also conducted scoping missions for the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative in Argentina, Peru and Paraguay, and collaborated with several of the initiative’s publications, including “The Asset Recovery Handbook”, “The Puppet Masters”, “On the take: Criminalizing Illicit Enrichment to Fight Corruption”, and “Identification and Quantification of the Proceeds of Bribery”.

Back in 2000, Guillermo was part of the legal team that helped the Peruvian Government to prosecute and extradite some associates of Alberto Fujimori from Argentina and that lead to the recovery of more than USD 170 million. Since then, he has been consulted by the Governments of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Panama, Peru and Paraguay on several asset recovery related matters.

Guillermo has also an extensive academic involvement. He is Global Adjunct Professor of New York University (USA) and Senior researcher at the Center for Anticorruption Studies at San Andrés University (Argentina). In the field of asset recovery, Guillermo has authored Recuperación de Activos de la Corrupción, the first book on corruption asset recovery published in Spanish (Editores del Puerto, Buenos Aires, 2008) as well as several articles, including, among others, “The Peruvian Efforts to Recover Proceeds from Montesino´s Criminal Network of Corruption”, in Pieth, M. (ed.), Recovering Stolen Assets, Peter Lang, Bern, 2008, available at http://live.v1.udesa.edu.ar/files/uahumanidades/libros/2008jorge.pdf and “International Standards against Money Laundering” (ICC, the FraudNet Compendium, 2009).

The Firm has successfully litigated many major asset recovery, money laundering and fraud claims in the Commonwealth Caribbean. We have been successful in recovering millions of dollars in assets for our clients. Our team of lawyers is particularly skilled in addressing the multijurisdictional issues which arise in litigation as a result of the Asset Tracing and Recovery tools which we employ on behalf of our clients.

Peter D. Maynard, Counsel & Attorneys, is widely recognised for its expertise and efficiency. We devote our time not only to solving clients” problems but to anticipating and preventing them. We are well known for our ability to develop creative solutions based on an extensive knowledge of key industry sectors and legal practice.We not only seek to be an adviser, counsellor, and advocate for our clients, but also a team member dedicated to achieving mutual goals. Whether providing counsel to an individual or putting together an international corporate transaction, our attorneys have one overall goal: to get results for our clients by providing the best possible job in terms of quality work, timely service and sensitivity to cost.

Asset Tracing, Bankruptcy Law, Civil Litigation, Corporate Law, Intellectual Property Law/Trademark & Patents, Trusts.Fraud/Business Crime Profile: Peter D. Maynard Counsel and Attorneys advises corporations and individuals in connection financial institutions, fraud (public or private), money laundering, liquidations, receivers, and asset tracing and recovery, asset protection, and recovery of assets, which have resulted from fraudulent activities.