Discovering irregularities or misconduct within your business is a very stressful situation with the potential for loss of reputation, personnel, trust and money. There are a number of ways in which we can assist in order to help you navigate your organisation through these issues.
During our investigations, we play a number of roles:
- Being a critical friend to the management team including audit committees;
- Undertaking an independent review to establish what has happened, how it happened, who was involved and, where relevant, what has been lost;
- Informing the next steps for recovery and ensuring that the organisation is in the right place to put the issues behind it.
We can support management teams with their decision making and also, where necessary, suggest how the investigation should be undertaken – but always with management having complete control.
We understand both the private and public sectors and we are also able to provide fraud risk training to all levels of staff, management and audit committees.
More details of our experience in fraud and financial misconduct investigations is available in our CVs:
We have significant experience of undertaking investigations in the following areas:
- Fraud involving senior management, staff and third parties. Investigations we have been involved in include:
- Directors manipulating financial records to show improved, but false, performance;
- Directors going beyond their fiduciary duties, causing companies to have significant financial liabilities; and
- Directors seeking to increase their income by way of exploiting bonus schemes, expenses and payroll.
- Procurement-related matters, such as staff receiving incentives for placing business with certain favoured suppliers, the circumvention of policies and procedures, and the rigging of tenders. In one investigation, we saw how a senior member of a procurement team placed orders for millions of pounds of capital spending with favoured suppliers who had not been properly vetted and provided a sub-standard service;
- Bribery. In one matter, the acquirer of a company soon discovered that the former majority shareholder/CEO had bribed customers for a number of years, thus immediately reducing the value of the company and placing the new directors and the company in the sights of the Serious Fraud Office;
- Whistleblowing. We have undertaken a number of investigations precipitated by whistleblowing, not only in relation to financial matters but also HR matters and issues involving customers and clients;
- We are trained in witness and suspect interviewing and can call upon forensic IT and corporate intelligence specialists in respect of the review of electronic data and undertaking a deep dive into the backgrounds of individuals and entities. In our experience, electronic and background data often provides the evidence that is required to understand more about what has happened in a situation and inform which direction the investigation should take.