Cross-Border Governance Trends 2025: Navigating Complexity in the Americas

The landscape for cross-border business structures, family offices, and international capital deployment has fundamentally shifted. What once appeared as straightforward expansion opportunities now demands sophisticated governance frameworks, regulatory alignment, and intentional strategic planning. For families, founders, and internationally active businesses operating across Canada, the United States, and Latin America, understanding these emerging trends is critical to building resilient structures that endure.

The Shifting M&A Landscape

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions have declined significantly from their historical peak. In 2007, cross-border deals represented nearly 50% of global M&A value. Today, that figure stands at approximately 30%—a downward trajectory accelerated by geopolitical tensions, regulatory scrutiny, and the COVID-19 pandemic's reinforcement of domestic consolidation strategies. In 2024 alone, cross-border deal values represented only 0.7% of global GDP, well below the long-term average of 1.3%.

Yet this apparent contraction masks a critical insight: intra-regional transactions significantly outperform their alternatives. Research reveals that deals within the same geographic region—such as North America or Latin America—deliver an average two-year relative total shareholder return of 1.2%, compared to just 0.6% for inter-regional transactions and -0.9% for purely domestic deals. This pattern reflects a fundamental principle: companies that expand internationally while navigating familiar cultural and regulatory landscapes achieve superior outcomes.

For businesses and families operating across the Americas, this trend underscores the value of regional consolidation strategies. Rather than pursuing distant global diversification, the highest-return opportunities often lie in deepening integration within established geographic clusters—leveraging operational efficiencies, regulatory familiarity, and cultural alignment.

The Evolution of Family Office Governance

The family office landscape has undergone profound transformation. With over 7,000 family offices globally managing close to $6 trillion in assets, these institutions have evolved far beyond simple asset management vehicles. Today's family offices function as legacy institutions—integrating governance, succession planning, philanthropic strategy, and values alignment alongside financial management.

This evolution reflects several converging pressures:

Regulatory Complexity: The international tax environment has become dramatically more stringent. Frameworks like the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), and OECD controlled foreign corporation (CFC) regimes require meticulous compliance across multiple jurisdictions. Families operating across Canada, the US, and Latin America must navigate distinct tax treaties, reporting obligations, and anti-abuse rules—often simultaneously.

Intergenerational Wealth Transfer: As substantial wealth passes to new generations, family offices must address not only tax efficiency but also governance alignment, succession planning, and the integration of diverse family members' values and objectives. Structures that worked for one generation may prove inadequate for the next.

Reputational and Compliance Risk: Family offices are increasingly tasked with managing reputational risk associated with cross-border tax compliance. This requires internal governance mechanisms that extend beyond traditional accounting—encompassing cybersecurity, data privacy, and transparent reporting frameworks.

Values Alignment: Modern family offices increasingly integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles into investment strategies. Families seek structures that reflect their values while preserving capital and enabling long-term impact.

Structuring Across Jurisdictions: A Modular Approach

Successful cross-border structures are no longer "one-size-fits-all." Instead, leading families and businesses adopt bespoke, modular approaches that combine local legal infrastructure with global oversight.

In Latin America, families increasingly employ hybrid models. Costa Rican families, for instance, blend domestic trusts with international holding companies to navigate limited tax treaty networks. Mexican families utilize trusts and companies to manage intergenerational wealth while complying with CRS and CFC regimes. Brazilian families are formalizing governance through shareholder agreements and family protocols—moving beyond informal arrangements toward institutional structures.

In Canada and the US, the focus centers on avoiding unintended tax exposure. A critical consideration is whether family office activities create a "US trade or business"—a classification that can trigger adverse tax consequences. Typical administrative activities such as bookkeeping, research, and investment management generally do not create taxable presence, but direct involvement in operational businesses or shared services can inadvertently trigger US tax exposure.

Spain and European models offer additional lessons. Spanish families increasingly rely on regulated vehicles and special purpose entities to preserve tax advantages while maintaining operational flexibility. The key principle: legal form must align with familial substance. Structures that appear efficient on paper but fail to reflect actual family governance and decision-making often collapse under regulatory scrutiny.

The Governance-Tax Integration Imperative

One of the most significant shifts in cross-border planning is the recognition that governance and tax planning must be integrated, not siloed. Historically, families appointed tax advisers to minimize liabilities and legal advisers to document structures. Today's best-practice approach recognizes that governance frameworks—decision rights, voting structures, continuity plans, and dispute-prevention mechanisms—must be designed in concert with tax planning, not after the fact.

This integrated approach yields several benefits:

• Operational Clarity: Well-defined governance frameworks ensure that decision-making processes function consistently across jurisdictions, reducing friction and enabling faster execution.
• Tax Efficiency: Structures designed with governance principles in mind often achieve superior tax outcomes because they reflect actual family operations rather than artificial arrangements.
• Regulatory Alignment: Transparent governance frameworks that align with family values and operational reality are more likely to withstand regulatory scrutiny.
• Succession Resilience: Intentional governance design ensures that structures survive generational transitions and evolving family circumstances.

Emerging Challenges and Opportunities

Several critical challenges are reshaping the cross-border governance landscape:

Data Localization and Privacy: Countries are increasingly tightening controls on how data is stored and shared across borders. Families must ensure that governance and reporting systems comply with these evolving requirements while maintaining operational efficiency.

Regulatory Convergence and Anti-Abuse Rules: Tax regimes are increasingly converging around common principles—BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) initiatives, Pillar Two global minimum tax, and domestic anti-abuse rules. Structures that exploit regulatory gaps face heightened scrutiny.

Digital Transformation: Technology is reshaping how family offices operate. Automation, data security, and transparent reporting are becoming fundamental pillars of future-ready structures. Families that integrate digital infrastructure early gain competitive advantages in compliance, reporting, and decision-making.

Geopolitical Volatility: Political uncertainty, sanctions regimes, and shifting trade relationships create new risks for cross-border structures. Families must build flexibility into their governance frameworks to adapt to changing geopolitical circumstances.

Best Practices for Cross-Border Governance

Based on emerging trends and successful implementations, several best practices are emerging:

1. Intentional Design: Rather than adopting off-the-shelf structures, families should invest time in designing governance frameworks that reflect their specific circumstances, values, and objectives. This "intentional design" approach—grounded in legal precision and personal values—remains the cornerstone of long-term success.

2. Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Effective cross-border governance requires seamless collaboration among legal, tax, banking, insurance, and operational advisers. Siloed expertise often leads to suboptimal outcomes. Leading families establish integrated advisory teams that communicate regularly and align around shared objectives.

3. Regional Consolidation: Rather than pursuing distant global diversification, families should prioritize deepening integration within established geographic clusters. Intra-regional structures typically outperform inter-regional alternatives.

4. Governance-Tax Integration: Tax planning and governance frameworks must be designed in concert. Structures that separate these functions often fail to achieve either objective effectively.

5. Flexibility and Adaptability: Cross-border structures must be designed with built-in flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances—regulatory changes, geopolitical shifts, family evolution, and market dynamics. Rigid structures often become liabilities.

6. Transparency and Alignment: Structures that prioritize transparency and align legal form with familial substance are more resilient. Families should ensure that governance frameworks are understood and supported by all stakeholders.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

The cross-border governance landscape has become more complex, but this complexity creates opportunity for those who approach it strategically. Families and businesses that invest in intentional governance design—integrating legal, tax, operational, and strategic considerations—position themselves for long-term resilience and value creation.

The key insight is this: governance is not a compliance burden; it is a competitive advantage. Families that establish clear decision rights, define roles and responsibilities, and implement disciplined processes execute faster, adapt more effectively, and preserve capital more reliably than those that treat governance as an afterthought.

As you navigate cross-border structures across the Americas, remember that the most sophisticated families are not those with the most complex structures. They are those with the clearest governance frameworks—structures that reflect their values, align with their operations, and enable confident decision-making across jurisdictions.

At Coigne Capital Partners, we specialize in helping families and businesses design and implement these intentional governance frameworks. Through our multidisciplinary network of governance, legal, tax, and operational experts across Canada, the US, and Latin America, we help clients navigate complexity with clarity and confidence.

References

[1] BCG. (2025). "Capturing the Value of Cross-Border Deals." https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/capturing-the-value-of-cross-border-deals

[2] International Bar Association. (2025). "New frontiers for family offices: emerging issues for cross-border family office structures and investments." https://www.ibanet.org/emerging-issues-for-cross-border-family-office-structures-and-investments

[3] Descartes. (2025). "2025 Trade Compliance Trends: Insights Shaped by 2024." https://www.descartes.com/resources/knowledge-center/2025-trade-compliance-trends-insights-shaped-2024