{"id":4043,"date":"2010-11-30T15:02:33","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T19:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/?p=4043"},"modified":"2013-10-09T15:50:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T19:50:27","slug":"online_52_gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/2010\/11\/online_52_gates\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges in Lawyering"},"content":{"rendered":"
Introduction<\/h5>\n
\n

U.S. corporations, especially those in the mining and oil and gas industries, face many challenges in operating in difficult locations around the world.\u00a0 With the imperative to go where the natural resources occur, these challenges can be geographical, operational, legal, and ethical depending on remoteness, terrain, political stability, governing regime, and cultural differences.\u00a0 Absent a developed concept of \u201crule of law,\u201d there is often no assurance of impartial courts, predictable enforcement of contracts, or due process in the treatment of employees or assets.\u00a0 Changes in regimes or economic conditions can result in an environment that has deteriorated significantly from the time a company made its initial country entry decision.\u00a0 Creeping expropriation through tax, royalty, or regulatory changes or total expropriation of assets is a potential risk.\u00a0 Expatriate employees are often asked to take local assignments, and local employees may be hired.\u00a0 Their safety and security is a central concern.\u00a0 Reputational risk is also a key consideration.<\/p>\n

Imagine this realistic scenario presenting a perfect storm of problems: Several years after undertaking operations in a country, a company learns that a local agent may have paid bribes to obtain business on its behalf.\u00a0 The governing regime has become increasingly despotic.\u00a0 The U.S. government indicates that country sanctions may be imposed due to links between the regime and terrorism.\u00a0 The regime initiates decrees to double the royalty rate and tax rate on foreign concessions.\u00a0 A company expatriate employee is hijacked and possibly kidnapped on his way to work, and, because operations in the country are material to the company, prompt disclosure obligations apply.<\/p>\n

Providing legal advice to business operations exposed to such events requires counsel to be aware of a wide range of considerations in order to plan a specific country entry, anticipate problems, reduce the risk of legal exposure, and react quickly to developments.\u00a0 Creative lawyering goes beyond knowledge of the applicable law to include understanding local culture and customs, understanding the company\u2019s strategy and risk tolerances, being mindful of corporate reputation, gathering relevant prior experience, and being willing to act as the conscience of the company.\u00a0 To address known and unknown risk conditions, companies and their lawyers can look to a number of guiding principles to shape decisions and responses.<\/p>\n

As a starting point, U.S. corporations must comply with applicable U.S. law and local law in their operations.\u00a0 This obligation is supplemented by self-imposed standards set forth in codes of business conduct adopted by most major corporations and in international initiatives on human rights, security, and transparency to which many companies in extractive industries have subscribed.[1]<\/a> The evolution of these initiatives in industries that have experienced the challenges for many decades can provide a context and precedent for companies in other industries with global operations.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/div>\n
Read full article (PDF)<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

[1]<\/a> See, e.g.<\/em>, <\/em>ConocoPhillips, Code of Business Ethics and Conduct, <\/em>https:\/\/secure.ethicspoint.com\/domain\/media\/en\/gui\/26697\/code.pdf [hereinafter ConocoPhillips Code of Conduct].<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Creative lawyering goes beyond knowledge of the applicable law to include understanding local culture and customs, understanding the company\u2019s strategy and risk tolerances, being mindful of corporate reputation, gathering relevant prior experience, and being willing to act as the conscience of the company. To address known and unknown risk conditions, companies and their lawyers can look to a number of guiding principles to shape decisions and responses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[121],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-series"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZu3S-13d","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/ilj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}