Blog category
Corporate forensics, internal investigations, due diligence and asset protection.
Economic security is what a business does before a case ever reaches court. A forensic review, an internal investigation, counterparty screening and financial due diligence cost a fraction of recovering losses years later, once the assets have already been moved out.
The usual triggers: unexplained gaps between management and statutory accounts, costs rising without a matching result, purchases from related parties at inflated prices, a conflict between partners, preparation to buy a shareholding or a going concern, suspected abuse by staff with financial responsibility. Two further strands are protecting assets against raider attacks and building a company anti-corruption programme.
Unlike a court examination, a forensic review has no procedural form: it is carried out under a contract, in a scope agreed with the client, and its output is controlled information for the owner's decisions. Yet the materials gathered often become the basis for a criminal complaint or a claim, so they should be documented from the outset in a way that survives procedural scrutiny.
Who must adopt an anti-corruption programme under Ukrainian law, what the NAZK model programme requires, and how to keep it from being a formality.
Financial due diligence before buying a business in Ukraine: how an expert checks statements, hidden debts, pledges, tax and litigation risk.
A forensic audit independently examines a company's finances to uncover fraud. What it is, how it differs from an audit and when to order one.
Suspect a partner is siphoning profit from your Ukrainian company? How forensic accounting and expert analysis verify what the books really show.
How an employer in Ukraine lawfully recovers an inventory shortage from staff: grounds for material liability, the stocktake, order or court.
Early signs of fraud in a company: financial and behavioural red flags of staff abuse, where to look first and how to secure evidence quietly.
How to vet a Ukrainian counterparty before signing: state and VAT registers, court debts, sanctions, and a file that protects your VAT credit.
How to run an internal investigation into theft or misconduct lawfully in Ukraine, so the evidence you gather still holds up in court later.
How to spot asset stripping behind a staged bankruptcy in Ukraine, challenge the suspicious transactions and recover property through court.
How to protect company assets from raiding in Ukraine: register monitoring, corporate safeguards and the first response to a hostile takeover.
An audit tests the reliability of the financial statements as a whole and works on samples. A forensic review looks for something specific — signs of abuse, asset stripping, conflicts of interest — and goes deep into each episode, including transactions that are papered flawlessly. The auditor answers “are the statements reliable”; forensics answers “what actually happened here”.
Internal investigation materials are not themselves procedural evidence, but they support a claim or a criminal complaint and form the basis for a later examination. They must be gathered lawfully — within employment law and data protection requirements — or they will become a problem for the company itself.
Before buying a business or a stake, entering a partnership, granting significant trade credit, or ahead of a merger or investment round. The review covers the reality of assets and receivables, hidden liabilities, tax exposure, dependence on related parties, and pending court and tax disputes.
Property sold well below market value, debt to newly created counterparties growing fast, activity shifted to another legal entity with the same staff and customers, unexplained write-offs, loan agreements with no economic substance. Each sign alone can be explained; it is the combination that should worry an owner.