Sam Taylor of S-RM, head of the Consulting Company at the Consulting Company in the field of America, speaks with global financing about the changing nature of investigations in companies.
Global Finance: Your wallet is wide – at any time your business can focus on integration and purchasing companies, tracking international assets, recovery or compliance with penalties. Many of them involve the detection of hidden wealth. How does one hide the origins?
Sam Taylor: It is complicated. One can use another person to keep your on behalf of you, then love any contact with this person. But this raises confidence issues. Once you create a bank account, which is in the name of another person, they now have legal control over it and they can do anything for it. There is another way through layers – creating layers and layers of Shell companies, many of which have been combined and created through the judicial states that are not transparent.
GF: What do you think of encrypted currencies?
Taylor: Curricula is risky, but another effective way to hide assets. The currency can be completely hidden from the traditional banking system. It has made things more difficult than the asset tracking perspective. However, we have developed strategies to work on the inherent challenges, which combine detailed tools with a great deal of field experience. “
GF: And difficult origins?
Taylor: We come against solid assets a lot. We had a project for years, where we identified a yacht owned by someone we were following on behalf of the claimant. Their child had posted a picture on Instagram on a party on the aforementioned yacht. We managed to track the yacht science and then reflected the engineer from where the ship was recorded again to our topic.
GF: Corporate investigations seem to have expanded significantly. Is there more fraud and misconduct there?
Taylor: It definitely expands. The Internet, digitization, globalization – all of these things converge in the early first decade of the twentieth century, and the world became “flattering”. In the 1970s or eighties of the last century, the investors you have dealt with from Ohio or in New York may be, and now they often come from places such as the Gulf or Southeast Asia. We have more complex disputes across the border.
GF: We see more geopolitical polarization these days as well. Does this make your business more difficult? The wealth of the Assad family was hidden in the news. Will it be difficult to discover these assets today from 10 years ago, for example?
Taylor: Ten years ago, it may have been easier. In the past decade, advanced players have become much better in filling their origins. People were more negligent early. Social media was less lock. Sometimes we were able to find assets because someone was published without thinking a piece on social media. People who escape with more attractive assets.
There are more tools now. I heard about Pegasus and some other types of spyware revolving around the world. It seems that in an era in which technology was adapted to the powerful and those who try to stay hidden – to face what was a wave of openness on the Internet.
However, there are also our new tools. While the United States’ transparency law in the United States is temporarily stops in terms of its implementation, Europe now has similar laws that require companies to detect useful property information. Marine records are now more available (if the respondents are not turned off on ships). There is a lot of data that we interrogate. Therefore, it is difficult to know where you can go down in terms of macro in relation to those who win and those who lose. I just want to say that both sides are more armed and that the cat and mouse game continues.
GF: Do cultural differences constitute your investigation approaches in companies ’intelligence?
Taylor: definitely. In the United States, we can work over the phone or by email. There is basic confidence in business and the United States has a long trade history. People are more willing to talk to you. This often turns in the developing world. There is always a deep well of public records, or information that can be easily obtained. You really need to rely on sources in a good position.
Timing is also a problem. The US -based investor agent wants to close something in a week or two. But if we collect intelligence in a place like Brazil, things may not happen very quickly. Try Brazil in the second half of February or the first half of March during the carnival. The same with the Middle East or Asia during some holidays.
GF: Many believe that the Trump administration will liberate many government agencies. Will this decrease the demand for your services?
Taylor: The departments of departments means changing priorities. I certainly understand this and I am concerned about the potential effects of working from the implementation of low organization, especially in the US Securities and Exchange Commission. But my instinctive feeling is not to exaggerate the reaction or panic. When one door closes, another opens. The president is likely to be stronger in terms of the implementation of some laws against countries that are not seen as friendly, or taking other retaliatory measures.
GF: What are some of the biggest errors of the governance committed by your “goals”?
Taylor: The unannounced interests come a little, especially in the boundary business-places such as Mexico, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps one of the relatives of the executive official of a government minister company has not been disclosed.
GF: To return to encrypted currencies, it was transferred from last year regarding the collapse of the exchanging currency of FTX, which may show words that from this scandal may show the market to be more powerful and healthier. Do you still feel this way, especially in light of the last noise of the M.?
Taylor: About FTX, you may be very optimistic. It was the opportunity to really clean this space. See, there is value in the presence of decentralized LEDger technology. Get that. I do not see the value in the number of different coins, the amount of speculation, or fraud that occurred. There was an opportunity for this entire industry to intensify and make important changes and work with the government to create a good organization and legislation to impose it. It did not happen.
GF: Do you accept work on behalf of governments?
Taylor: Yes, but anything we will do for the government will first ascend to our risk committee, and it will be evaluated for legal risks, conflicts of interests, as well as reputable risks. I would like to add that this does not include a wide range of our business, but we did that and we will do so again depending on the mandate and depending on the government agent.
GF: A recent study showed that most of the 40,000 integration and acquisition deals have failed in the past forty years. This is often because the parties have been nurtured or wrong information. Did more of these transactions succeed if these deals are examined better?
Taylor: When companies like us participate, we will likely find relevant information. It may even be information that can kill a deal. We can raise serious fears about the risk about treatment, but people may still go and deal with anyway, especially if the market is plus. The nature of information has changed in the past ten years. Each armed person to the maximum information they can collect. But the results are still dependent on a person who uses the information provided, and often has a great relationship with market morale.
