Cases

Ian Bannister worked on a major pre investment due diligence assignment for a multi-national client, which was considering a substantial investment in northern Brazil. He and his support team carried out due diligence on the client´s proposed business partners in various different states, and were able to show that the proposed investment was vulnerable to a range of political, legal and environmental factors and to possible manipulation by the proposed partners. The client placed its initial investment plans on hold, and reviewed its approach to finding suitable business partners in Brazil.

Ian Bannister was tasked by a large utilities company to investigate fraudulent payment of a range of customer bills paid via bank payment slips. The payments had all been diverted to a separate account unrelated to the company.   As well as investigating certain corporate and individual players possibly connected to the fraud, we reviewed the entire billing process and uncovered a series of lacunas, all of which could have facilitated the fraud.  The identity of the fraudster(s) was not uncovered, but the company was able to address the process failures – without reducing the rapidity of the process – and suffered no further losses.

A multi-national financial company contracted Ian Bannister to assist its security and events departments in managing the logistics and security for its annual corporate Board meeting, involving some 20 senior executives and/or non-executive Board members and some spouses. The visit lasted 6 days, and involved travel to 4 different locations in Brazil. It took place without incident; the events and security personnel involved were commended for their work.

Ian Bannister was contracted by a multinational agricultural company to identify assets owned by a Brazilian firm which owed the multinational company nearly USD 10 million for imported raw material that had not been paid. Working closely with the client´s Sao Paulo based legal counsel, we carried out a wide range of public record asset searches into the Brazilian company, its partners and other companies and individuals linked to the partners.  Numerous property assets were found. We also conducted relevant field work to confirm the size and value of the property assets.  Both the end client and Sao Paulo law-firm confirmed the value of our reporting, and drew on it to initiate legal action.