1. Focus on the gatekeepers from the outset

The core commercial observation is that there is no point pursuing a claim if you cannot enforce. A useful follow-up question is: who are the gatekeepers who may influence or stall recovery – banks and custodians, registries, regulators, ministries, counterparties and political stakeholders – and what context are they operating in?

Once those actors are identified, the recovery strategy is strengthened by considering:

• What environment do they operate in (regulatory exposure, political sensitivity, reputational scrutiny, internal accountability)?
• What do they need to feel comfortable acting?
• What makes delay and obstruction attractive or risky?

Having clear answers to the above questions early can help save time and money in a recovery campaign. Much of the most effective communications work in recovery involves private, factual, carefully sequenced engagement that makes cooperation feel defensible.

2. Construct and position narratives that change behaviour

Clients often experience a clean result in a major forum as a crescendo. The tempo changes when enforcement begins: procedural friction, asset flight risk, resistance from third parties, competing narratives, and, at times, an entirely different set of “real decision-makers”.

One way to concentrate attention and make an enforcement campaign legible is to work closely with investigators to identify “totemic” assets early on: superyachts, trophy homes, private aircraft, high-value art. A spreadsheet of entities does not land in the same way.

Not every case will feature assets like this. But in every case, clients should think strategically about attention and incentives. Well before enforcement begins – and at every stage of the process – the client team should consider how to build leverage lawfully, framing the endgame as a legitimate and inevitable outcome.

3. Making repatriation acceptable

When recovery becomes cross-border repatriation, making the outcome politically, institutionally and reputationally acceptable may be the hardest part.

“Your compatriot’s assets are being taken away by a foreign party” rarely motivates cooperation, and can create resistance, particularly where the debtor retains local loyalties and networks.

A useful way to think about repatriation is a push/pull problem:

• Pull: compliance serves the country’s (or community’s) interests.
• Push: refusal carries cost for decision-makers and institutions – and for the jurisdiction’s standing.

The practical implication is targeted stakeholder mapping and education: who needs to understand what, and in what sequence, for compliance to become the only acceptable path?

4. High-value cases attract hardball tactics

Large recoveries tend to trigger aggressive resistance. The debtor’s legal strategy often runs alongside a parallel pressure strategy designed to make enforcement feel toxic, complicated, or improper – and to drive down settlement value.

The usual ingredients are familiar: “abuse of process” framing, victim inversion, selective leaks, procedural manoeuvres, intimidation, and efforts to unsettle third parties.

The higher the value, and the longer the matter runs, the greater the surface area of reputational exposure for the client. This is particularly true where enforcement sits near political sensitivities, investors, regulators and ongoing operations.

DRD helps clients mitigate these risks by ensuring:

• Tight coordination across advisers and clear internal information handling to reduce tip-offs and inconsistencies;
• Preparedness for hostile narratives that migrate across jurisdictions (including via social media);
• Rapid response and crisis containment when the other side mobilises local media, NGOs and other third parties to create pressure on the creditor.

5. Public visibility can help – if used sparingly and with purpose

Public exposure is not a default tool, as it can backfire and create additional risks. But used selectively, it can have practical benefits beyond “pressure”:

• it can prompt other counterparties to come forward;
• it can flush out intelligence and hidden assets;
• it can reveal other victims and enable consortium approaches (shared intelligence, shared cost);
• it can strengthen the credibility of the recovery effort when gatekeepers are looking for signals.

The key is preparation. If enforcement is likely to become visible at any stage, it is far better to plan for that early than to discover, halfway through, that the only thing available to explain the case is a name and a structure chart.

How DRD supports recovery and enforcement matters

DRD supports clients and their legal and investigative teams on the communications and stakeholder dimensions of recovery, enforcement and repatriation, particularly where outcomes depend on third-party behaviour, legitimacy and cross-border scrutiny.