International
Increasing globalization of business is a fact of life. Companies now regularly operate in multiple countries with differing legal traditions, systems and values. Important business relationships cross international borders. In this new era, legalservices must protect and advise clients wherever they operate or communicate.
Our firm advises companies on applying American and Colorado law, where appropriate, to these international relationships. We also advise our clients and assist in finding, using and developing legal relationships with expert legal professionals worldwide to ensure that the urgent and necessary legal knowledge and expertise is applied, no matter where the business takes place. Inaddition, we have a special expertise in internal and external environmental investigations and support work by foreign legal professionals.
International Litigation
To have your fate in the hands of a foreign tribunal in an alien legal system can be frightening. When that situation arises, it is essential to be able to understand the decisions made and to have complete confidence that your legal representatives understand your company, the facts and your wishes. We have experience finding and working with attorneys worldwide in high stakes litigation to ensure that legal analysis, witness preparation, evidence presentation and legal strategy are performed at the highest possible level. Also, cases pending in courts in the United States now regularly have international aspects and require witnesses, discovery and parallel proceedings around the world.
Our firm actively engages in all of these necessary international activities. Some examples include cross borderlitigation Alien Tort Claims Act suits in the United States, coordination and facilitation of civil and criminal proceedings regarding high profile environmental claims in southeast Asia, coordination of parallel mass tort proceedings litigated in courts in North and South America, environmental investigations and related litigation in Africa, and representation of relatedentities regarding corporate ownership and financial responsibility issues in multipleCentral Asian countries.
Natural resources, environmental and regulatory rights and duties are issues thatcommonly arise for companies that operate transnationally. Combining international assets into anefficiently functioning whole, while understanding, evaluating and complying with constantly changing local, regional and national legal duties in foreign countries is a normal challenge of modern business. These projects are team efforts of corporate personnel and outside attorneys who understand the company's business and values, and host country expertise. Whether it is a global policy or an individual regulatory issue, the procedures, risks and costs must be understood. International environmental regulation is particularly challenging. A lack of clear requirements and a reliance on local discretion can render a functioning, dynamic project completely unfeasible. Issues of clarification and the rule of law arise constantly.
Our attorneys work with clients in need of understanding, articulating and even forming local practices, regulations and laws. Often, international legal structures such as treaties, international arbitrations or international guidelines are used to bolster national regulatory regimes. Our lawyers have worked with companies and regulators in South America, Asia, Australia and Africa to help ensure key regulatory processes are open, fair and clear.
Human Rights, Security and Corporate Social Responsibility
There is a growing consensus that corporations have duties of protecting internationally-recognized human rights. This, combined with a more intense focus on the social responsibility and sustainability of corporate actions have lead some corporations, particularly within the extractive industries sector, to embrace voluntary standards of conduct and adopt explicit principles. Companies need advice on determining whether to adopt these principles and, if so, how they can improve performance and reduce liability. Our lawyers have experience assisting corporations in all phases of this emerging challenge, from adopting the principles themselves, to monitoring their effectiveness, to creating grievance procedures to enforce them.
For example, the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights is an emerging standard affecting how extractive industries operating in challenging environments should handle the use of force. This includes working with, and occasionally contracting with, host nation public security forces, as well as proper training and guidelines for private security forces and employed security personnel. Security is necessarily a first priority for a company committed to protecting its own employees. However, it can be a dangerous areawhere the occasional use of excessive force, or even a claim of excessiveforce, can profoundly affect company operations, right to operate and international reputation. Firm attorneys also work closely and communicate frequently with personnel from the major International Financial Institutions to help develop standards, methods and procedures for avoiding damaging human rights controversies, whether in the courtroom, in public demonstrations or in the press. One of these includes the development of an effective Human Rights Impact Assessment to be used to prevent, avoid and control negative human rights impacts, as well as to record and document significant positive human right impacts caused by the company's project.