Due Diligence
Independent verification of a counterparty, supplier or target, delivered as a written report with every finding sourced.
A report of this kind is only worth what its sources are worth. Every finding in ours carries the record it came from, and everything we could not establish is listed as unestablished. The temptation in this work is to present an absence of adverse findings as a clean result; those are not the same thing, and we do not write them as though they were.
We use public records, local independent contractors and, where the engagement calls for it, interviews with people who have dealt with the subject directly. We do not obtain information by deception, and we do not accept material that an expert is not free to disclose.
This is verification and research. It is not a legal opinion on the subject's position, and it is not an audit.
What you receive
- A written report on the subject, with each finding attributed to its source
- Corporate records — registration, ownership, filings and litigation, where public
- Operational verification, including site visits where the engagement covers them
- A summary of what could not be established, and why
Engagement and fees
- Fixed fee per subject, by depth of report
- Fixed fee per programme, where several subjects are screened together
- Additional fee for field work, quoted by location
How we work
Scope
What the report has to answer, and what decision rests on it. Screening a supplier and assessing an acquisition target are different pieces of work.
Records
Corporate registries, regulatory filings, litigation and sanctions screening, gathered from public sources and attributed.
Field work
Where the engagement covers it, verification on the ground — the premises, the operation, the people — through independent contractors we engage locally.
Report
Findings with sources, and an explicit list of what remained unverified. A gap presented as a gap is more useful than a gap quietly filled.