Frequently Asked Questions

Engage outside investigators at the earliest credible signal of misconduct, regulatory inquiry, or material allegation — a whistleblower complaint, a subpoena or Wells notice, a credible internal tip, an audit finding, or an external report.

Early engagement preserves privilege under Upjohn, secures volatile evidence (cloud and ephemeral data, mobile devices, departing-employee artifacts), and gives the audit committee and counsel a credible record of independence. Late engagement narrows strategic options, signals indifference to regulators, and routinely results in adverse-inference findings, monitor imposition, or higher penalties under the DOJ's Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs framework.

We are former regulators, prosecutors, and chief compliance officers — not generalists.

Our team includes former SEC enforcement attorneys, FBI special agents, DOJ trial attorneys, and Chief Compliance Officers of major multinationals. That depth means our findings withstand cross-examination, our reports translate cleanly into Wells submissions and DOJ presentations, and our independence is credible to regulators evaluating cooperation credit. Our investigations have resulted in criminal charges and enforcement actions against more than 100 individuals.

We follow a defensible, privilege-protected protocol: scoping memo, preservation, evidence collection, targeted interviews, forensic and financial analysis, written findings, and remediation roadmap.

Every step is documented for chain of custody and reproducibility. We work under the direction of counsel to preserve attorney-client privilege and work-product protection, issue Upjohn warnings to interviewees, and structure findings so they support — but do not predetermine — counsel's privilege, disclosure, and remediation decisions.

We scope based on allegation complexity, custodian count, jurisdictional footprint, and regulatory exposure, and we offer fixed-fee, hourly, and phased pricing.

For most matters we begin with a fixed-fee scoping phase that produces a written investigation plan, evidence-preservation map, and budget for the substantive work. Reporting cadence is calibrated to the audit committee — typically weekly status calls plus monthly written updates suitable for board review. Cost forecasts are provided before each phase so audit committees and special-committee chairs can validate cost discipline.

We support clients before the SEC, DOJ, CFTC, FINRA, OCC, FRB, FDIC, Treasury (FinCEN and OFAC), DOC/BIS, State Department (DDTC), FTC, HHS-OIG, and parallel non-U.S. regulators including the UK SFO, FCA, and EU enforcement bodies.

Our former-regulator team understands how each agency staffs and litigates matters and how to position findings for cooperation credit, declination, or non-prosecution under the DOJ Corporate Enforcement Policy and SEC Seaboard framework. Learn more about our financial regulatory enforcement and compliance response service.

We investigate cross-border bribery and corruption matters end-to-end — third-party due diligence, beneficial-ownership analysis, accounting-records reconstruction, and remediation testing — in line with the DOJ/SEC FCPA Resource Guide and UK SFO guidance.

Engagements typically include forensic review of agent and distributor payments, books-and-records (FCPA accounting provisions) testing, gifts-and-entertainment program review, and interview-driven assessment of tone-from-the-top. Findings are calibrated to support DOJ self-disclosure, declination, or NPA/DPA negotiations. See our anti-bribery, AML, and corruption service.

We map transactions against OFAC sanctions programs, the EAR (Commerce/BIS), and ITAR (State/DDTC) — testing screening, end-use, and end-user controls — and recommend disclosure strategy under OFAC and BIS voluntary self-disclosure (VSD) policies.

Engagements include SDN and 50% Rule screening forensics, transactional sampling, end-use certification review, and assessment of Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela program exposure. We coordinate with counsel on VSD timing, which under current OFAC and BIS guidance can result in penalty reductions of 50% or more. See our export controls, sanctions, and trade service.

We reconstruct the trading and information timeline — order tickets, position changes, communications, calendar entries, and access logs — and test it against the elements of SEC Rule 10b-5, Section 16, and the Dirks/Salman tipper-tippee framework.

Our team has investigated market manipulation and insider-trading schemes resulting in hundreds of millions in investor losses. We support information-barrier reviews, MNPI handling assessments, and Reg FD compliance — and we testify on materiality, timing, and alternative explanations. See our insider trading and market abuse service.

Treat every credible whistleblower allegation as a regulator-facing event from day one — Dodd-Frank Section 21F and SOX Sections 806 and 1107 protect reporting employees, and the SEC's Office of the Whistleblower has paid out more than $2 billion in awards to date.

Our protocol locks down evidence, opens an independent investigation under counsel, issues Upjohn warnings, protects the reporter from retaliation, and produces written findings credible to the SEC, DOJ, OSHA, and audit committee. See our whistleblower allegations service.

We combine ledger-level analytics, Benford's-Law and outlier testing, journal-entry forensics, and interview evidence to identify schemes, quantify loss, and document methodology to ACFE and AICPA Statement on Standards for Forensic Services standards.

Our team has addressed victim losses exceeding $1 billion and recovered more than $45 million through seizures and forfeiture. Reports are written for use in civil recovery, criminal prosecution, insurance claims, and SEC submissions. See our forensic accounting and fraud service.

We follow funds across bank wires, real estate, corporate structures, and blockchains using on-chain analytics, beneficial-ownership mapping, and cross-jurisdictional public-records research.

Engagements support civil recovery, criminal forfeiture under 18 U.S.C. §§ 981–982, receivership, and Mareva/freezing-order applications. We work with law firms, court-appointed receivers, and government agencies, applying FinCEN Travel Rule data and exchange records where available to pierce nominee structures. See our asset tracing, recovery, and forfeiture support service.

Monitors are typically imposed by DPAs, NPAs, plea agreements, consent orders, or court orders when a regulator concludes that internal compliance is not yet self-sustaining — the DOJ's Benczkowski Memo and 2024 monitor-selection guidance set the benchmark.

Our monitorship engagements include quarterly control testing, interview-driven culture assessments, remediation milestone tracking, and reports to the court or regulator. We have helped clients exit consent orders by demonstrating sustainable compliance. See our monitorships, independent compliance reviews, and remediation monitoring service.

A corporate risk assessment is a proactive review — not a reaction to a specific allegation — that benchmarks governance, internal controls, third-party risk, and culture against industry standards and the COSO ERM and DOJ Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs frameworks.

Boards and audit committees commission these assessments before IPOs, after acquisitions, in response to ESG and regulatory shifts, or when a director surfaces concerns short of formal allegations. Findings are delivered with prioritized remediation roadmaps. See our corporate risk and internal assessment service.

Our investigators are also testifying experts.

We preserve evidence to forensic chain-of-custody standards, prepare expert reports under FRCP 26(a)(2), and testify on financial reconstruction, fraud schemes, ESI handling, and regulatory standards in federal and state courts, AAA and JAMS arbitrations, and SEC and DOJ proceedings. Several team members have served as court-appointed special masters. See our litigation support and evidence preservation service.