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Litigation Support For Business

Member: Nifa

Forensic accounts are often associated with fraud, recovery of assets and finding cash in overseas accounts in criminal cases or locating where spouses have hidden assets in the divorce proceedings of the wealthy. But they are just as vital in scrutinising accounts when a business underperforms or fails.

In these situations, there are often issues or disputes arising from the financial dealings of the business managers; investors and stakeholders want to know where the money has gone and lawyers need to be sure that they have their facts straight if the matter ends up in court.

The purpose of forensic accounting is to provide litigation support in the form of an accurate assessment of a business’ or individual’s assets and/or financial behaviour. This information is reviewed by judges and, in some cases, juries, and it may have a large impact on the case’s outcome.

Recently, listed property developers Safeland have discovered that they have been the victims of further fraudulent transactions since the announcement of discovered losses by the firm last month.

The losses from these further transactions, all of which occurred during the year ended 31 March 2012, amount to approximately £265,000 and the aggregate of the sums lost to the company through fraudulent transactions now stands at approximately £1.525m.

Safeland will continue to attempt to recover as much of these losses as possible and is currently trying to get back a reported £700,000 of the cash it has lost.

When losses such as these are discovered, forensic accountants should be brought in to ask the who, how, when, where questions and then supply the answers. They gradually piece together the parts of the financial puzzle that reveal the picture and hopefully help to obtain justice for the victims in the case.

 

Author: Roger Isaacs, 16th November 2012


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