Thomas J. Treutler, partner and managing director of Tilleke & Gibbins in Vietnam, will be participating in a roundtable meeting on Transnational Crime on Friday, August 31, at the Horison Hotel in Hanoi. The meeting, organized by the U.S. Embassy, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, will bring together practitioners from multiple sectors working to combat crime on a transnational basis, including representatives from Vietnamese, international, and inter-governmental agencies and organizations. Thomas, as an intellectual property lawyer from one of Vietnam’s top IP firms, was invited to provide an overview of the current state of anti-counterfeiting and IP enforcement efforts in the transnational context in Vietnam.

Transnational crime—which includes not only the smuggling of drugs, counterfeit goods, protected wildlife, and humans, but also the money laundering, corruption, intimidation, and even murder commonly associated with such trade—is a serious and growing problem in Vietnam. The participants at the roundtable meeting will share their experiences, develop a consensus on the key challenges and obstacles to effective control of transnational crimes, and propose multi-sectoral approaches to combating transnational crimes.