International investment fraud
When a group of internationally based companies, including a number of financial services companies, collapsed, our insolvency practitioners discovered that a significant proportion of over $300m of funds invested by individuals in various offshore jurisdictions had not been invested as set out in the group’s investment schemes’ prospectuses.
We helped our insolvency practitioners reconstruct accounting records, both to trace the flow of funds in the various group companies and to support civil litigation to maintain a freezing order over the remaining assets of companies.
Computer interrogation techniques were also used to examine large amounts of electronic data gathered as part of a search and seizure order and to establish how best to recover the missing assets.
We reported our findings to the SFO who also commenced their own inquiries, arresting and interviewing several of the companies’ senior management.
We have continued to pursue civil recovery actions and have launched negligence actions against auditors and advisors who, we allege, failed to report upon the fraudulent activity.
