Cross border activities of SME firms, investment funds and businesses serving unregulated activities often justify the use of corporations in different jurisdictions. Sometimes these jurisdictions have a strict regime to corporate secrecy and low taxation. These tax efficient environments often shield beneficial ownership and alongside the legitimate purpose of the domestic environments, allow illicit actors to hide their belongings out of sight of curious third parties.
Global financial regulation gets stricter nowadays. However, some countries do not wish to comply with these strict rules on specific business activities, creating an ideal playing field for those with sly thoughts. The greatest financial scandals of the past, like Parmalat, Enron, Madoff Securities, and the Stanford Financial Group utilized tax havens and offshore jurisdictions to hide the true nature of (some) of the corporate operations, leaving creditors in the dark with heavy losses.
The nature and opaque structure of multi layered international conglomerates invites for entrepreneurs to copy these exorbitant corporate affiliations. However, the lack of substance and presence, as well as the limited knowledge of the local regulation makes it possible to locate hidden funds, seize such assets and distribute them to its rightful owners. This lengthy process is possible by combining several investigative techniques, such as forensic accounting and traditional discovery procedures.
Illicit behaviour, complex fraud and money laundering requires specialist attention to avoid that victims of these acts lose their personal fortunes and are properly taken care of. Our goal is to limit the damages for victims of financial misconduct where offshore tax havens are used to hide misappropriated assets. This means that we can collaborate with local attorneys and law enforcement. This combination ensures civil recovery as well as seizure of criminal proceeds by law enforcement for distribution to victims to ultimately reach the maximum recovery potential.