The media seems to be having a good chuckle over the recent legal tiff between hedge fund manager Daniel Shak and his ex-wife, professional poker player Beth Shak. The couple divorced about three years ago, but Daniel is requesting that the court amend their divorce settlement. He argues that his wife hid assets from him
Foreign Due Diligence on U.S. Companies is a Must
We have had a number of recent cases involving foreign companies who entered into large-scale sale agreements with American-based corporations. These companies are run by sophisticated, experienced executives. In most instances, the agreements were for millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise.
Both sides hired attorneys who scrutinized the proposed contracts. They carefully considered payment and
Strategy Tips for Asset Searches
Recently we were hired to track down a man who defaulted on a million dollar judgment against him by our clients. The man’s family owned and operated a successful retail business. Since the judgment against him, the man had declared bankruptcy. He alleged that he no longer had income from or access to his family’s
Staying Afloat in a Sea of Data
Adam Davidson recently wrote “Making Choices in the Age of Information Overload,” for the New York Times magazine where he explained how consumer choices have changed in the Information Age. With so much data about a potential purchase—from price comparisons to reviews by ostensibly objective consumers—we are drowning in a sea of information.
JPM, Feynman and Investigations
A superb column over the weekend by the personal investing columnist in the Wall Street Journal, Jason Zweig, “Polishing the Dimon Principle,” struck a chord or two with us because of what it said about human knowledge and the occasional lack thereof.
Zweig was advising investors not to look to J.P.Morgan Chase’s CEO
Tracking Down Spouse’s Hidden Money: Don’t Count on Taking Shortcuts
Whether one spouse hides money from the other during a portion of their marriage (and the Wall Street Journal reported this week in Veronica Dagher’s article, “Hiding Money From Your Spouse Has Gotten a Lot Harder,” that 58% of spouses say they do), the serious attempt to track it down will almost always
The Putin Plot and Investigative Timelines
We tell every new client the same thing: when we report on a person we investigate, chronology is critical.
Take the New York Times story this week with the headline, “Plot to Kill Putin is Uncovered.” We rushed to read this because it sounds as if someone tried to kill the Russian leader that day
Secret Lender Agents Make Asset Searches Harder
It’s always nice to be able to know who has loaned people money. It helps in asset searches, of course, but we also like to call bankers in after-fraud investigations. Now getting to the identity of those lenders is about to get harder.
Secured creditors have to put their customers on the public record. Such
Forensic Investigations: Due Diligence Done Correctly
What’s the difference between a forensic audit and a regular audit? We think we know the difference when we see it, but what is it? The issue came up before a short talk I was giving to some accountants last week, and the answer was relevant to our fact-finding business.
A regular audit is not
Low-Cost Background Checks Ruin Lives
An enraging story by the Associated Press spells it out: computers used by background checkers mix up two people with the same name. Blameless woman gets tagged with a criminal record that isn’t hers, can’t get work and ends up homeless.
We’ve written about the danger in relying on the “intelligence” of computers here