Craig Coben is a former investment banker at Bank of America, where he served most recently as co-head of global capital markets for the Asia-Pacific region. Howard Fischer, a partner at law firm Moses & Singer, is a former senior trial counsel at the US Securities & Exchange Commission.
Governments and businesses around the world have long chafed at the way the US enforces its laws abroad. But the US is now poised to take extraterritoriality to the next level by introducing emission disclosure rules that have largely gone unnoticed.
The US has issued multibillion-dollar fines against European corporate champions for bribing foreign officials in breach of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or for clearing dollar transactions for Iranian and Cuban entities in violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, even though the conduct happened outside the US and didn’t involve any US entities. The long arm of US enforcement also compels foreign companies to comply with US export regulations on a long list of countries. The US has more recently been accused of “weaponising” the dollar to force other countries to abide by its policy preferences.