May 30, 2026 · A&O Shearman
As regulators coordinate — and diverge — across borders, multinationals face a compliance landscape of unprecedented complexity.
Regulatory reform is accelerating on every continent, and the rules rarely move in step. Multinationals now operate in a landscape where a single business decision can trigger overlapping — and sometimes conflicting — obligations across a dozen jurisdictions.
The result is a premium on advisers who can see the whole board at once: mapping how a change in one market interacts with enforcement priorities in another, and helping clients sequence their decisions accordingly.
The firms that manage this well share a common trait. They treat regulatory strategy as an integrated, firm-wide capability rather than a series of local opinions — coordinating specialists across markets so clients receive one coherent answer, not many partial ones.
For boards, the practical takeaway is to invest in that coordination early. The cost of a fragmented approach is not just legal risk; it is the strategic paralysis that comes from never having a single, trusted view of where the organisation stands.
