Forensic Services - Expert Witness Testimony:
We are currently involved in serving as an expert witness in numerous disputes. These cases involve internal investigations related to insider abuse, conflicts of interest, corruption, fiduciary responsibilities, and other issues involving the breakdown of corporate governance reporting structures. Specific topics include credit card fraud, mortgage fraud, circumvention of internal controls, and specific issues involving malfeasance of directors and other insiders. We have also been involved with helping to better understand the intent of regulatory enforcement actions including civil money penalties, removal and prohibition orders, memorandums of understanding and cease and desist orders.
Regulatory Issues - Banking and Banking Supervision:
We have significant experience in helping troubled financial institutions respond to regulatory compliance issues involving examinations, enforcement actions, loan underwriting and asset classification standards including the evaluation of non-performing loans and impaired assets. We have also assisted in the development of recapitalization plans.
Financial Fraud
The Opportunity Group is a leader in compliance and fraud reviews. Our staff has decades of experience supporting banks and other financial institutions in uncovering and mitigating fraudulent practices, including accounting, administrative, and governance controls. Our view is to investigate how accounting and administrative controls were breached.
We view a fraud investigation as a structured, methodical process to determine how the fraud occurred and who was involved. Our review of financial fraud is to uncover the intentional misrepresentation of material fact(s), including deception to secure an unfair advantage or an unlawful gain at the expense of another. Our view on fraud investigations is straightforward: it begins with identifying the root causes of fraud and how it continues to impact your businesses.
In addition to these core investigations, we also provide industry-specific financial fraud detection services. In this regard, we focus on uncovering emerging threats that can escalate and cause business risks. Our professionals use industry-leading analytics and historical trend analysis to detect unusual patterns and strengthen internal controls.
In addition, we provide our clients with financial regulatory support services. The service helps institutions stay compliant with regulatory changes and enforcement protocols. This proactive approach to protecting the organization’s assets helps avoid sanctions and penalties and ensures operational stability.
Our investigations of fraud have the following characteristics:
- Objectivity and independence – investigators should remain unbiased and independent from the parties involved.
- Confidentiality – information is shared strictly on a need-to-know basis.
- Evidenced approach - includes gathering and analyzing source documents and interviews of witnesses or others with firsthand knowledge to perform transaction-level reviews.
- Legal compliance – investigators must operate within the boundaries of the law.
- Clear scope and objectives – the definition of what is being investigated should be clearly defined.
- Documentation – every step of the process must be documented, creating an audit trail that ensures opinions are thorough and fair.
- Professional skepticism – every assumption must be questioned to avoid accepting information or explanations at face value.
Our guiding principles - We understand that helping our clients meet their business challenges, manage risk, and navigate the dangers of costly, disruptive litigation and investigations begins with an in-depth understanding of their business model.
Our services included insider misconduct, embezzlement, corruption, and other conflicts of interest. We use data analysis, audit reports, and compliance assessments as part of procedures to detect and prevent fraud. We have extensive experience in data reconstruction, loss quantification, tracing of funds, and investigations of transactional and source documents.
We have years of experience in drafting, enforcing, and determining compliance with enforcement documents and other punitive actions, including regulatory compliance disputes. Our expertise in these matters is evidenced by the continued demand for our testimony in depositions and at trials, with courtroom-ready analysis.
The benefits to our clients include accurate, defensible findings and conclusions. We have provided end-to-end support from initial inquiries to court-approved resolutions. We ask you to connect with our experts to protect your organization's integrity.
Our practice of financial fraud focuses on the following:
- Commercial Lending Operations
- Residential Mortgages
- Commercial lending programs
- Insider/Related Parties transaction
- Classification of Impaired Assets
- Evaluation of the adequacy of loan loss provisions and reserves for non-performing loans
- Asset recovery strategies
- Circumvention of Administrative Controls, including policies and procedures
- Evaluation of Compliance with Regulatory Enforcement Actions, including Memorandums of Understanding, Cease and Desist Orders, and Civil Money Penalties.
Our recovery team includes: Certified Fraud Examiners, Certified Public Accountants, Former Certified Banking Regulatory Officials, Experienced Expert Witnesses, and Forensic Analysts.