Asset tracing and recovery involves identifying, securing, and following the movements of assets. These assets include money, other financial assets, real estate, business interests, vehicles and other types of property. Assets are traced and recovered in order for the assets to be returned to, or liquidated for, the benefit of their rightful owner.
A prominent Canadian businessman was accused of concealing the complete extent of the company’s assets from his two business partners by creating a complex structure of holding companies and oversea shell companies. These were setup for the sole purpose of moving assets from Canada overseas and concealing the true identity of the Directors and Officers of the entities and the assets they held.
The two partners decided they would hire forensic accountants in order to perform a global asset trace, which would provide a foundation for the link between the accused and the various assets that he purportedly held and was attempting to conceal. The forensic accountants were able to ‘infer’ ownership through a variety of different evidentiary support that they had obtained.
Having proved a ‘wrongdoing’, the forensic accountants report was used as the basis for legal counsel to obtain a Norwich Pharmacal in order to obtain specific documents which further aided in connecting the accused to his assets. Once this information was acquired it was used to obtain a ‘freezing order’ to prevent the dissipation of his assets which could be liquidated in order to remedy the victims’ losses and to pay their litigation fees.
Relevant Evidence:
- Text Messages
- Banking Records
- Accounting Records
- Real Estate Records
- Corporate Filings and business names registration