Conference programme

The past several years have witnessed unprecedented attacks on democracies and democratic principles. These attacks take many forms, including: physical attacks on government buildings and institutions and threats to public officials, both appointed and elected, and their families; the flourishing of unfounded, conspiracy theories about “widespread voter fraud” spread by partisan social media and some mainstream media; elected officials who refuse to recognise the results of fairly administered elections and lawyers who enable election deniers by commencing litigation without credible evidence; and the concomitant flurry of legislation to “reform” voting systems. The collective effect of these attacks has been to undermine public confidence in the democratic system and elections, waste countless hours of time and resources on recounts and investigations, discourage responsible and fair-minded people from serving as workers and officials in the election process, and suppress the votes to gain political advantage. 

This session will provide a brief overview of these “attacks” in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the collective threat to the democracy which these attacks present, and what lawyers can do to avoid and prevent future attacks. The speakers will also explore the very difficult legal issues some of these attacks present, including:

-        balancing the competing interests of preventing the publication of blatant untruths with the right of free speech;
-        reconciling the right of everyone eligible to have their vote counted with the need to prevent voter fraud; and
-        balancing the necessary governmental administration over the election process with avoiding the hijacking of elections by partisan government officials.

INFORMATION ON THE SPEAKERS

Hon Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour is a Senior Counsel at Borden Ladner Gervais LLP. She completed in December 2018 her mandate at the UN as Special Representative of the Secretary-General on International Migration, which led to the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration. She has also held other senior positions at the United Nations, including High Commissioner for Human Rights (2004-2008) and Chief Prosecutor for The International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda (1996 to 1999).
 
She formerly sat as a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1999 to 2004, on the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Ontario. She chaired an inquiry commission that investigated events at the Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, and has also served as a member of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security. In 2021 she was appointed to carry out a review into the Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence, in response to reports of harassment and sexual misconduct within Canada’s military.
 
Madam Arbour also formerly served as an ad hoc judge in the International Court of Justice and as a member of the Advisory Panel to the Minister of Defence on Canada's Defence Policy Review. She is currently a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the International Commission Against the Death Penalty and the Advisory Board of The Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

Lorenzo Cordova

Lorenzo Cordova is a Mexican lawyer, academic and legal researcher. He was appointed by the Chamber of Deputies as member, for a period of nine years, of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Mexico’s Constitutional agency that organizes and overseas elections, were he served as Chair.

He is currently Investigador Titular “B” de Tiempo Completo at the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas in UNAM, where he coordinated the Electoral Law department. He is a level III researcher at the Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI). 
Lorenzo has authored many articles on electoral, Constitutional, and political theory. He has authored, co-authored, and coordinated more than a dozen books, most recently “La Democracia no se toca”, coauthored with Ciro Murayama (Planeta, Mexico, 2023). He is a regular contributor to El Universal, one of Mexico’s oldest and mayor newspapers.

(Please note, at the end of the panel, the IBA and the NARF will give speaker Mr. Cordova a recognition for his defense of the rule of law, democratic values, and free and fair elections).

This session will explore how companies are leveraging existing complaint mechanisms such as hotlines, investigation procedures, dispute resolution, and principles of access to remedy to address ESG-related grievances by key stakeholders. The panel will discuss case studies involving complaints in traditional compliance areas such as anti-corruption and emerging ESG priorities such as human rights, to provide strategic and practical guidance for lawyers and the companies they advise.

The session will cover the legal issues arising from blocking of web sites. Such sites may be actively managed by social media accounts who may block access based on their own internal policies, i.e. in respect of hate speech, fraud or user complaints, or such web sites may be passively managed internet service provides where protection against infringement must be enforced by private action. Particular issues concern rolling web site blocking orders to control signal piracy of live broadcasts.

Law firm leaders, in-house counsels and D&I experts will lead a discussion on the importance of diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and on the opportunity (or not) of designing and implementing diversity and inclusion policies in law firms. The IBA project consisting in drafting of a global D&I toolkit for law firms of different sizes across the various jurisdictions will be presented. 
After a brief overview of the key elements of the IBA D&I toolkit, a discussion will be encouraged on the following topics: (i) the main challenges that law firms may face when implementing diversity and inclusion policies, (ii) how law firms can ensure that diversity and inclusion is not just a checkbox exercise, but rather a true commitment to creating a more equitable workplace, (iii) what steps law firms can take to guarantee that diversity and inclusion remains a priority in their organization, (iv) how law firms can "sell” their diversity and inclusion efforts to clients, and what benefits this can bring to them.

Political instability and poor governance in Latin America unfortunately are not new, but nowadays their impact in private investment has reached a peak, and one of the ways they manifest is by the notorious increase of controversies between governmental authorities and private investors relating to PPP projects, government contracts and investment agreements. This panel will discus the rise of investment and international arbitration in Latin America, the current trends and hot topics. Experts and renowned practitioners from the panel will share their experiences in this arena.

Don't miss our panel of top M&A practitioners as they highlight some of the game-changing transactions of the past year, providing war stories and a unique perspective on the biggest recent developments and what they mean for the future of M&A. Join us for a lively and informative session with some of the best in the business.

The session will discuss the impact of international dispute resolution on the trade in legal services, highlighting the creation and growth in international commercial courts and regional arbitration centres, competing with each other to attract legal services to their region/jurisdiction, the interaction between local lawyers and foreign firms, and the role bars can play. The panel will bring a comparative perspective and draw on the experience of Singapore, Rwanda and India. 

As governments around the world are proposing plans to make their jurisdictions more independent and energy-secure, nuclear power and coal are being re-visited. This session will discuss whether these sources can contribute to energy independence within new frameworks including ESG, new technologies and safety standards, and international commitments regarding emissions and climate change.

There is no single franchising law in Europe, and therefore maintaining and expanding the operation at this challenging time should take into account a lot of structural and practical considerations.

A panel discussion on the challenges faced by countries with sovereign debt issues due to war, political instability, inflation, depreciating currencies, or shortages of basic commodities.  This session will highlight the current practical and legal limitations in resolving sovereign debt defaults, from asset tracking and enforcement to use of centralised restructuring strategies and legal regimes as alternative solutions to prevent or mitigate sovereign debt defaults.

Across the world high-wealth individuals and everyday citizens avail themselves of non-traditional family creation. Yet, LGBTQ+ families are at the forefront of these issues while still suffering inequities in their own and other nations. This panel will be presented by the world’s most inventive and successful cases relating to international adoption, alternative medical processes and identity of citizenship.

Including the status of the Singapore Convention and mediation guidelines for international commercial disputes.

This session will discuss:

• What are the future expectations of ESG factors within the companies?
• Does the social object of a traditional company will be understood as a real social purpose?
• Can profit financing tackle social and environmental gaps?
• What exactly a sustainable world of 2100 will require?

Pricing legal services – is anybody doing it properly? 

This session will be using SLIDO.  To participate please go to SLIDO.com and enter the code: 1187748

Clients and law firms talk about pricing all the time but are law firms (and clients) really taking it seriously - both as part of the strategy of a law firm and with a view to having a profitable law firm.  Do clients really care how much profit a law firm makes? We all claim to know revenue does not equal profit but does that simple “confusion” flow into most law firms’ approach to pricing – are they pricing for revenue not profit?  With a panel of experts we will examine the pricing conundrum from four perspectives.

i)    Pricing to win work.
ii)    How do we price to reflect efficiency?
iii)    Clients say they want to kill the chargeable hour – why haven’t they?
iv)    Having agreed a price why do we then ignore budget management?

Having heard from each of our four experts we will then have a lively dialogue, picking up on the points they make and hoping to reach some practical conclusions that are relevant for all law firms.

The panel will present and discuss the following aspects of criminal cases in product liability cases:

• individual and corporate criminal liability/administrative liability;
• criminal proceedings and parallel supervisory authority proceedings as well as civil proceedings;
• how to deal with customers and media; and
• corporate compliance/technical product compliance.

An interactive crisis management session exploring money laundering and economic sanction risks as they bite upon the operations of a multijurisdictional law firm. 

In this mock boardroom crisis scenario, the trouble begins with a short email sent by a stressed junior associate at a fictional law firm in a galaxy not too far away: “Help! I think the client may be a money launderer.” 

What follows is a day from hell in the life of the firm’s lawyers, risk and compliance team, partners, accountants, bankers, insurers and management board. Addressing the crisis in case study presentation, financial crime law experts from around the world will play different roles within the fictional law firm - such as MRLO, auditor, external regulators, banks, police and journalists. An unfolding set of investigative, reputational and ethical challenges will be developed and discussed at each stage with cross-border insights from the panel. 

A joint open meeting of the IBA Global Employment Institute, Employment and Industrial Relations Law Committee, and the Diversity and Equality Law Committee, held to discuss matters of interest and future activities.

An open meeting of the Law Firm Management Committee where all committee members are invited to learn more about the extensive activities of the committee.