We can help you respond immediately and decisively by:

• Rapidly mobilising an investigation team that can be in situ within a very short space of time to investigate actual or suspected fraud, market abuse or other financial crime 
• Establishing the facts – who did what, when and how? 
• Finding out how an incident was allowed to occur, and interviewing suspects and witnesses 
• Accessing the adequacy and effectiveness of systems and controls, and fixing any system or control weaknesses 
• Tracing and recovering lost funds or assets (to return to the business and shareholders) 
• Identifying, securing, handling and analysing important evidential material or corporate data 
• Analysing computer data, evaluating facts, assessing financial loss and gathering intelligence 
• Taking remedial action to reduce the chance of an incident recurring, and to provide reassurance to regulators, law enforcement, the market, customers and other stakeholders 
• Helping to build the case for, or responding to, legal regulatory, disciplinary, civil or criminal proceedings 
• Mitigating the potential reputational and commercial damage that can follow an incident.
  

You can expect:

• Discretion 
• To recover all or part of the stolen funds, which can be channelled back into your business 
• To avoid/reduce reputational damage with your investors, customers and creditors, thus lessening the knock- on commercial impact that a damaging fraud could otherwise have 
• To strengthen your anti-fraud controls to prevent and detect future losses.
  

KPMG’s Forensic practice has undertaken some of Ireland’s largest accounting and financial investigations. We can assist public, private and financial sector clients to investigate financial loss, financial crime and fraud risk. Our team of forensic accountants possess:

• Senior-level experience on international high-profile fraud and misconduct cases 
• Former law enforcement investigations experience 
• Relevant regulated sector experience.
  

Recent case study

Our client had been informed of certain unusual recent transactions on his bank account, which appeared to have been carried out by a long-term employee.

The employee had previously been the subject of a disciplinary action and an investigation by another firm of accountants in relation to misappropriation of our client’s funds through a small number of relatively low value transactions. Subsequently, access to the client’s bank accounts was understood to have been removed.

We identified that almost €5 million had been misappropriated by the employee, through various means including misappropriation of cash and cheques. We also identified that a significant proportion of the funds had been misappropriated prior to the disciplinary action and related previous investigation. We analysed how this money had been utilised. We also identified that the employee had falsely accounted for the fraudulent transactions, through access to the accounting system.

Using information gained during the course of the investigation, we were able to link a large number of transactions on our client’s bank account to transactions on the employee’s accounts. By accessing international asset registers, we identified that our client’s funds had been used to purchase an apartment in the USA and to fund the purchase and maintenance of racehorses in the UK. The matter recently came before the criminal and civil courts.