We at the IELR send you best wishes for the new year. 2024 was momentous for the international enforcement community, and we are grateful to have had you following along with our coverage during our 39th year of discussing international enforcement developments.

We are grateful for the continuing long partnership with Professor Michael Plachta and contributions from practitioners and professors, including the Aljohrh Al Abdulsalam, Basel Institute, Kayla de Alto, Kenneth Boggess, Dr. Ted Bromund, Jack Crovitz, Frederick T. Davis, Sandra Grossman, Adrienne Hababou, Kaila Hall, Emily Hong, Paul Gully-Hart, Rodrigo Labardini, Valentina Lana, Marco Stewart Lopez, Elisabeth Lees, Luz E. Nagle,  Konstantinos Magliveras, Gino Naldi, Yuri L. Nemets,  Simran Pandey, Michel Sapin, and Katherine Scher.   Since April, Austin Wahl, a second-year law student at Washington College of Law, American Univ., has produced the IELR. Since May, Morinsola Tinubu has served as assistant editor.

We are also grateful for our partnerships with LexisNexis, WestLaw, EBSCO, and William Hein & Co. in distributing the IELR.

The following is a highlight of some of the articles we covered. In many cases, there are overlapping categories into which the articles fall, so we had to choose which category to discuss the article in.

On December 3, 2014, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, making it effective nationwide.[1]  Judge Amos L. Mazzant preliminarily enjoined the Corporate Transparency Act and Reporting Rule enforcement. The decision also postponed the effective date of the Reporting Rule.

On October 3, 2024, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a referendum on the UK’s membership of the court and its governing European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He said there was a “strong case for a proper referendum” after accusing the court of being “legally adventurist” and “trying to second-guess what national jurisdiction should do.”[1]

On December 23, 2024, Bangladesh stated that it had sent a formal request to India to extradite former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who abandoned her post for India in August during widespread protests, ending her 15 years in office.[1]

On December 17, 2024, a grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment[1] charging former U.S. Congressman David Rivera, 59, of Miami, with a scheme to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and launder funds to conceal and promote his criminal conduct.[2]

On December 10, 2024, United Kingdom (UK) Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser inked a joint action plan in London to reduce English Channel crossings by human smuggling gangs.  The deal arranged for both nations to share intelligence concerning instances of human smuggling between their borders and the broader operations of the gangs involved.  Such measures would include policing social media for relevant content, as the gangs are known to leverage the platforms to advertise their services.  It also officially made it a crime in Germany to facilitate the transport of someone to the UK.  German law had previously only criminalized the facilitation of one’s transport within the European Union (EU), and thus, the UK has enjoyed fewer protections ever since its exit from the EU.  This move is consistent with a wider trend of Western countries seeking to strengthen their border security.

In a historic crackdown, Mexican authorities recently seized over a ton of fentanyl in Sinaloa state, a hub of cartel activity and synthetic opioid production. This operation marks the largest fentanyl haul in Mexico’s history––equivalent to more than 20 million doses and valued at nearly $400 million.[1] The timing is notable, occurring just weeks before President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration and amidst his threats to impose steep tariffs on Mexico if it fails to stem the flow of drugs and illegal migration into the United States. This seizure underscores both the escalating crisis surrounding fentanyl and the intricate web of bilateral relations between the U.S. and Mexico, which intertwines trade, security, and domestic politics.

On December 12, 2024, Europol released its annual “European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT),”^[1] which it has produced since 2007.

On December 12, 2024, a Danish court convicted Sanjay Shah, a 54-year-old English financier, of cum-ex dividend fraud and sentenced him to twelve years in prison.[1]

The United States and China have furthered their diplomatic relations through a recent prisoner swap. The swap secured the release of three Americans who, per the United States government, had been wrongfully detained in Beijing. In return, the US released four Chinese citizens. Per the Chinese Foreign Ministry, three individuals were wrongfully detained, while one is a fugitive.