Investigators

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Looking to beef up its investigative strength in white-collar crime, accounting/consulting giant Deloitte & Touche LLP has joined forces with the Emerald Group, an international investigative company based in Westlake Village.

Under the deal, Emerald’s investigators many of whom are former FBI agents, Scotland Yard detectives and other law enforcement officials will be assigned to work on behalf of Deloitte clients.

Since the Emerald Group has contacts with local law enforcement officials in London, Paris, Budapest, Moscow, Tokyo and elsewhere, Deloitte’s clients will have access to information they may not have been able to obtain on their own. Emerald will benefit from the deal by getting access to Deloitte’s corporate client list.

The two companies also will share marketing, client referrals and other resources. While Deloitte will specialize in financial analysis and document tracing, Emerald will do investigative interviewing and evidence gathering. On certain cases, Emerald will bill Deloitte clients directly; on others, Emerald will act as an outside vendor, billing Deloitte for its services.

“We want to strengthen our capabilities in different parts of the world,” said Bruce Kelton, director of Deloitte’s forensic investigative services group in Los Angeles. “The business world has been globalized, and more and more clients need information about potential partners and potential transactions.”

The deal also will enable Deloitte through Emerald to offer new services, such as executive protection.

Tom Parker, president of the Emerald Group and former head of criminal investigations for the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said global white-collar crime over the past 15 years has been overwhelming law enforcement officials, who must give a higher priority to fighting violent crimes. As a result, international companies have had few sources of protection against white-collar crime.

“You have a large number of businesses around the country that experienced internal and external fraud problems and they have nowhere to turn,” said Parker. “There really is no other place to turn. They are turning more and more to the private sector to meet their needs.”

Currently, Deloitte has 15 full-time L.A. employees who work on fraud cases, most of them former law enforcement officials or ex-prosecutors. The Emerald Group employs 19 full-time investigators and more than 87 part-time employees.

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