Digging for Disclosure: Tactics for Protecting Your Firm's Assets from Swindlers, Scammers, and Imposters

Front Cover
FT Press, Sep 20, 2010 - Business & Economics - 208 pages

Financial crimes and scandals constantly victimize sophisticated companies, investors, executives, and business deal-makers. Whether you’re planning a major investment, a corporate acquisition, or merger, you can’t afford to have it happen to you. In Digging for Disclosure , the leaders of a world-class corporate investigations firm show you exactly how to protect yourself from financial fraud.

Kenneth Springer and Joelle Scott draw on decades of experience as investigators working for top clients. They present dozens of stunning stories of real-world financial malfeasance, as well as powerful lessons and techniques for recognizing the signals of fraud, and successfully exposing it. You’ll discover little-known databases for uncovering what corporate criminals don’t want you to know—and how to go beyond the Internet to find crucial information that only exists offline. Springer and Scott show how to “think like a swindler”… track down fraud both before and after a transaction… gather crucial competitive intelligence… find hidden assets such as co-op real estate… uncover foreign criminal convictions… understand a potential borrower’s true financial situation… perform background checks on corporations… even investigate the potential involvement of organized crime.

You can’t afford not to know who you’re dealing with. Digging for Disclosure will help you make sure you do—always.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Just When You Think You Know Someone
5
A Swindler State of Mind
11
We Call That a Clue
15
The Gray Area Somewhere Between Fraud and Fudging
23
Sometimes You Just Gotta Ask
29
Crossing Borders International Investigations
43
Digging for Disclosure
55
Dial F for Fraud The Benefits of an Ethics Hotline
103
This One Goes Out to the Attorneys
107
The Godfather in the Boardroom
113
Show Me the Money Asset Investigations
121
Investigating the Inc
131
You the Referee
137
The Secret Sauce
145
Testing Testing
159

The Competitive Edge
65
Never Too Late When Problems Arise PostInvestment
73
Tracking Down a Threat
83
Now That Is Criminal
89
Resource Guide
173
Index
179
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2010)

Kenneth S. Springer, a Certified Fraud Examiner, is president and founder of Corporate Resolutions, Inc. A former special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Springer has conducted business- related investigations and intelligence gathering for more than thirty years. While in the FBI, Mr. Springer worked on numerous internal and external bank frauds, wire frauds, Wall Street-related crimes, and other complex white-collar investigations. Prior to founding Corporate Resolutions in 1991, he was president of Bishops Services, Inc., an investigative firm in New York City.

A 1975 graduate of Siena College with a B.S. in finance, Mr. Springer is an active member of the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association-Legal and Compliance Division (SIFMACL), the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), the Association for Independent Private Sector Inspectors General (IPSIG), the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), the Managed Funds Association (MFA), Commercial Finance Association (CFA), and the European Venture Capital Association (EVCA). Corporate Resolutions is also a sponsor of the New York Private Equity Network (NYPEN), the HedgeFund CFO Association, and a recommended service provider of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Mr. Springer is also a frequent speaker and lecturer on private equity, hedge funds, global due diligence issues, risk management, and corporate investigations.

Joelle Scott is the Director of Business Intelligence at Corporate Resolutions, Inc. Ms. Scott has spent the last twelve years in business investigations and currently oversees the intelligence analysts at Corporate Resolutions to ensure quality control and accuracy of all investigative reports. A graduate of Colgate University, Ms. Scott received her master’s degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Ms. Scott is also a teaching assistant for Richard Wald at Columbia’s Journalism School on the topics of Critical Issues in Journalism and National Affairs Reporting.

Bibliographic information