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Case Studies

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A handpicked collection of business cases resolved by AGR (context and details have been modified for confidentiality reasons).

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Joint-Venture Fraud

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South-East Asia

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Issue
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A medium-sized continental company has a joint venture in Asia where the partners seem to act for their own benefit. The local partners are well connected with the local authorities and are being represented by a highly rated lawyer who is also 'connected'. The partners are directly managing the business because the majority foreign stakeholder has never assigned a local representative. Moreover, they are in the process of signing a significant contract for a specific project. The client suspects that the joint venture's references, which belong to the foreign partner, were utilized to win the project. However, the local majority partner will ultimately control the project through another company, depriving the joint venture of revenue. The foreign partners unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the local partner to sell back his shares to enable a proper joint venture management. However, the local partner has declined to cooperate. As the client is not present in the country and does not feel confident enough to take the matter into their own hands, they have asked AGR for assistance.

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Solution
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AGR promptly sets up a comprehensive plan of action, involving the client's lawyer to coordinate the investigation and negotiate any legal action our client may take against its partners. We conduct a thorough due diligence of the joint venture's activities, including approaches to its customers, particularly the one negotiating a major contract, and the joint venture partner's activities over the past year. We also verify if it has any direct or indirect interests in other companies operating in the same business sector. Simultaneously, we directly contact the partner and advise him to transfer his shares to the foreign partner at a reasonable price. This approach will benefit everyone and avoid exposing his undesirable activities. We also inform the police, as the local partner's actions may amount to criminal breach of trust. Within a month, we resolved the year-long dispute to the satisfaction of all parties involved. Our client regained control of its operations in the country.

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Impact
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A client who was defrauded by their local partner has regained control of their affairs and is now successfully operating in the country without the need to deal with unscrupulous partners.

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Values
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The prompt response of our firm, coupled with our knowledge of local legislation and our ability to quickly uncover the illegal activities of the local partners against our client's interests, as well as our strong support during the negotiations, resulted in the successful recovery of our client's shares.

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Validating Asian Ventures

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South-East Asia

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Issue
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A medium-sized company in the Asia-Pacific region intends to establish a joint venture with an Asian distributor that hasn't undergone scrutiny yet has been productive over the years. This task must be completed within a brief period owing to the advanced stage of negotiations and the client's desire to finalise the agreement rapidly. Our undertaking must be executed discreetly without the prospective partner's knowledge that due diligence is being carried out.

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Solution
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In addition to performing standard due diligence to verify potential litigation history of the distributor and other relevant factors, we approach industry insiders with various pretexts to gather information about our client's target company. We also approach the target company directly, using two different pretexts, to evaluate its ability to withstand harmful influences that may impact our client's investment.

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Impact
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The client is currently benefitting from its investment decision without any uncertainty about its partner. Moreover, its Asian operations are beginning to have a positive impact on its overall business.

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Values
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We maintained absolute discretion, and to this day, even after the joint venture has been operating for several years, the Asian company remains unaware of our extensive background investigation. The client was pleased with the promptness of our response and the relevance of our findings. In fact, he requested our in-house consultancy lawyer to compose the final agreement with their Asian partner.

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Hijacking corporate Information Systems

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South-East Asia

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Issue
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An online retailer suspects that two of his crucial employees committed fraud. Although several clues pointed to this conclusion, there was a lack of concrete evidence. The owner called in AGR for help when one of the employees began withholding critical information for the business.

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Solution
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A forensic expert visited the site to create a forensic copy of both suspects' workstations while the business owner and a notary were present. Data analysis disclosed that both employees were designing a new online retail platform that would rival the client in one of its principal product lines. They were primarily spending their working hours in the office developing this new platform and delegating most of their routine work to their colleagues. We also obtained the crucial information that one of the suspects was withholding from the business owner. We swiftly formulated a plan to safeguard business continuity following the dismissal of the two employees. The plan involved AGR taking responsibility for managing the core of the information systems both prior to and until the process of transition was fully carried out.

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Impact
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The client dismissed the two employees for breaching their contracts based on the collected evidence. The evidence was robust enough to discourage both employees from pursuing legal action against our client. The client didn't have to wait for a replacement to be found to terminate their employment as AGR was able to take over some critical responsibilities during the transition period.

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Values
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The rapid out-of-hours intervention, backed by appropriate legal support and in-depth data analysis, provided definitive evidence of fraudulent activity. Our extensive knowledge of information systems enabled us to recover the data and devise a transition plan for remote management of critical assets. This was accomplished without any impact on the business and with complete confidence in the absence of any form of disruption to the service.

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Ethics and Governance

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South-East Asia

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Issue
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A Fortune 500 company wishes to investigate whether any of its suppliers in an Asian country have any ties with some of its key employees in the same country. Strict confidentiality is necessary since some vendors are para-public companies.

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Solution
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Initially, a thorough examination is conducted on each company, aiming to identify their shareholders, directors, and key employees. Their associations with the client are reviewed, along with the evaluation of some of the client's competitors, where appropriate. Additionally, purchasing patterns of these companies are analysed, taking into account the individuals within the client's organization who communicate with these suppliers. Subsequently, an inspection is conducted on some of the client's personnel, including their immediate family members, to assess their prior employment records and ascertain any direct or indirect connections to companies as shareholders, directors, or consultants. The focus is also given to determining whether any of the said companies have a business relationship or are related to our client. Lastly, a discrete background check is carried out on these employees. Subsequently, we cross-check the names of the vendor's key employees with the client's personnel to identify any potential affiliations or trends. Despite being a time-consuming process, this method has helped us to uncover several cases of unethical conduct that violate our client's stringent compliance regulations. Appropriate corrective measures were implemented.

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Impact
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Some individuals were connected to some of the suppliers. Individuals with no evidence of improper dealings received warnings and reminders about the company's code of ethics and good governance; while individuals with clear evidence of corrupt and collusive behaviour were dismissed for cause.

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Values
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Despite the extended duration that was required to check numerous individuals against several companies spread across the country, we kept our client informed of our progress in a strictly regular manner. We exchanged questions and ideas with him throughout the assignment duration to ensure clarity on finer points. A vital aspect was that we refrained from finding wrongdoing where there was none, which saved a significant amount of time in drawing appropriate conclusions. Moreover, we ensured that neither the individuals nor the companies under our investigation were made aware of the situation, providing peace of mind to our client. This further prevented any possibility of union rebukes or similar undesirable outcomes.

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