Practice 3
Counterparty due diligence, investigations and fact-finding
Checking costs less than litigating. The purpose of this practice is to give you grounds for a decision before the money or the goods have moved.
The client's situation
- A new supplier, a large shipment or a prepayment where being wrong is expensive.
- A tender or a deal with a company you only know from its own materials.
- A debt where the debtor has stopped responding.
- A private transaction: property, vehicles, a major purchase.
What is usually at stake
- Prepayment for goods or services that will not arrive.
- A deal with a company that already has unmet obligations.
- A hidden conflict of interest between the parties.
- Time spent pursuing recovery where there is nothing to recover.
The applicable approach
Open and lawfully accessible sources
Registers, publications, court and enforcement records, open data on the company's structure and history.
Testing for consistency
We compare what the counterparty says about itself with what independent sources show, and record the discrepancies.
Fact-finding
Interviews with witnesses, collection and structuring of information, analytical work — within lawful limits and with the participants' consent.
Supporting the decision
We set out which deal terms reduce the identified risk: security, payment schedule, staged verification.
Format of the deliverable
- A counterparty report: confirmed information, discrepancies, identified risks and what they mean for this particular deal.
- Recommendations on deal terms and control points.
- For receivables — an assessment of the prospects of pre-court and court action, with no promise of recovery.
Lawful boundaries
- We work with open and lawfully accessible sources. Access to legally protected information, correspondence or closed databases is neither provided nor promised.
- We do not locate people in order to put pressure on them and do not accept tasks involving harassment.
- The absence of adverse information is not a guarantee of good faith — it is the state of the sources checked on the date of the check.
FAQ
Do you guarantee that the counterparty will perform?
No. A check reduces uncertainty and shows the known risks as at the date of the check. Nobody can guarantee performance.
Can you check a foreign company?
The scope depends on what sources are available in the relevant jurisdiction. We say so before the work starts, not after.
Not sure which practice your situation belongs to?
Describe it in two or three sentences — we will tell you whether we are applicable and what the next step is.