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Corporate Investigations

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The modern business and regulatory environment is increasingly unpredictable. Companies and individuals encounter legal and commercial risks on a daily basis and may often be able to neutralise them before real problems arise. Sometimes, however, internal or external forces can cause a crisis to unfold. For example:

 • Financial or operational crises caused by market instability, investment failure or potential insolvency of a counterparty;

• Large scale theft or fraud by employees or others;

• Dawn raids by police or regulatory authorities;

• Investigations or enforcement activities by regulators;

• Corporate espionage;

• Media and/or activist attacks;

• Natural and/or man-made disasters affecting operations;

• Emergency injunctions affecting key assets or products; or

• Cyber assaults on websites or IT systems.

Any one (or a combination) of these events may cause real damage to a company’s brand and reputation, with knock-on effects being felt in financial performance and the share price. Moreover, individuals in the company may become exposed to civil, criminal or regulatory liability.

Our Investigations & Crisis Management team is a diverse and creative group of lawyers who are highly experienced in helping clients respond to these difficult situations.

We have assisted:

 • Multi-national and international businesses/organisations;

• Financial services institutions;

• Directors and officers;

• Public sector clients; and

• High net-worth or profile/celebrity individuals.

We routinely act for individual and corporate clients in the context of regulatory investigations by the likes of the Financial Services Authority, Office of Fair Trading, European Commission, Serious Fraud Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, Companies Investigation Branch and the Public Interest Unit. Where official investigations are not underway, we often conduct internal investigations to deal with problems in a proactive and pre-emptive fashion.

Our litigators are experts in the fields of fraud and asset tracing, with the ability to quickly obtain freezing orders against assets wherever they may be. They can also seek, or defend, applications for emergency injunctions. We are also well-equipped to assist clients who need to enforce English judgments abroad, or vice-versa. In addition, the presence of former regulators within the group helps to ensure that we can adopt an approach best calibrated to deliver a positive outcome for our clients.

In situations with significant financial distress, our restructuring and insolvency lawyers provide proactive advice, covering a wide range of reconstruction, reorganisation and insolvency crisis support.

We can also provide "hands on" support at your offices to help your team manage and resolve a crisis through our specialist support group, staffed by lawyers who have been seconded to senior executive management posts in industry dealing with high profile crisis situations involving both private and public sector clients.

Crucially, we can also provide PR and communications advice, which is a key element of any crisis management strategy.

Get in touch

Ian De Freitas

Ian De Freitas

BLP
Partner, Intellectual Property
(mob: 07710 320575)

If you need help with a legal or business issue, please contact our team using the email link below. Alternatively, if you are facing an investigation and need urgent support, please contact either of us on our mobile numbers above.