Bridging Knowledge and Cultural Gaps Between U.S. Law and Foreign Legal and Business Teams
Businesses operating internationally are coping with multiple legal obligations, heightened regulatory and public scrutiny, and the prospects of costly and multi-jurisdictional penalties and reputational damage for compliance failures. For multinational firms, the task of managing compliance obligations is compounded by organizational challenges associated with having personnel that are scattered across the globe, possess disparate qualifications and attitudes toward legal and compliance obligations, and are subject to differing internal incentives and pressures.
Foreign companies entering or operating in the United States, or that are reliant on access to the U.S. financial system, have the added task of meeting the requirements of U.S. laws and regulations, the applicability and mechanics of which are often insufficiently understood and/or observed by foreign entities and their personnel (including personnel who, feeling that the extraterritorial application of U.S. law is unfair, may fail to comply, even inadvertently).
For foreign business with U.S. interests and multinational firms, an underlying challenge is a capacity-obligation mismatch: they must adhere to legal and regulatory standards that reflect U.S. or other “Western” expectations of business conduct and compliance, but such business conduct and compliance capacity often are lacking, insufficiently developed, or markedly uneven across operating locations and business lines.
MassPoint is well-positioned to work with U.S.-based and foreign businesses on bridging the gaps between in-house legal, regulatory and compliance capacity and the U.S. legal landscape. MassPoint’s Founder and Principal, Hdeel Abdelhady, has over fifteen years of experience working with multinational companies, banks, non-profit organizations, sovereign-affiliated parties, and other entities, including working effectively with diverse legal, compliance and business personnel based in the United States and abroad.
In addition, Ms. Abdelhady has fourteen years of experience teaching U.S. law and legal skills to foreign-educated and trained lawyers. Through her combined legal practice and teaching experience, Ms. Abdelhady has gained a unique understanding of the challenges faced by non-U.S. lawyers and business professionals in navigating the U.S. legal landscape and how the gaps can be bridged with effective communication, training and other capacity building across organizations. She has also appreciates dynamics from the lens of U.S. lawyers, compliance professionals and business personnel, who possess expertise in applicable law, reglulation and business practices, but nevertheless may encounter barriers in effectively communicating legal, compliance and risk management messages to overseas colleagues and counterparts.
For multinational and foreign businesses, MassPoint offers legal and compliance capacity building services designed to bridge the gap between U.S. law and foreign audiences, including:
- Identifying and addressing gaps in U.S. legal and compliance knowledge and discipline through training and materials customized for specific business lines or jurisdictions, or for the whole enterprise.
- Working with businesses and others to identify and remedy areas where legal, compliance and risk management messaging to foreign colleagues and counterparts is ineffective or otherwise in need of improvement.
- Working with foreign businesses to develop legal, compliance and governance capacity building programs and written materials to respond to specific legal and compliance needs or to prepare for U.S. market entry or expansion.
For more information about MassPoint’s U.S. Law Liaison services, contact Hdeel Abdelhady at habdelhady@masspointpllc.com.