Shareholder Dispute
Whether on the part of a minority shareholder or a majority shareholder, disputes amongst the ownership group of a company are stressful, full of emotion and often hinge on collective memories and ambiguous communications, contract and agreement language and the elusive “intent” of the agreements; all of which are difficult to derive from traditional paper documents. The use of data forensics to collect Electronic Evidence, however, often brings insight to the matter that simply doesn’t exist in other forms. Vestige assists in a number of critical ways in shareholder disputes and other cases where certified fraud investigators are needed.
How Vestige assists in Shareholder Disputes
- With the use of digital forensic science we can identify and assist in preservation of digital evidence and data containing potentially relevant Electronic Evidence
- Help parties get their discovery “houses” in-order to avoid satellite litigation surrounding discovery protocols
- Evaluate prior drafts, temporary copies and other copies of important documents to help assess the “intent” behind the language
- Identify, collect and analyze communications between interested parties closer to the time of the transaction to determine intent
- Provide access to and analysis of financial data in both structured (i.e. Accounting/Financial system) and unstructured (i.e. Excel spreadsheets) data sources
- Investigate claims/allegations of fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibilities and other malfeasances
- Assist in locating hidden, lost or otherwise obfuscated assets of the company
- Provide meaningful, unbiased evidence to valuation experts, forensic accountants and other professionals in need of evidence where the source of the evidence is not tainted
- Recover lost, deleted and corrupted documents, correspondence and other communications between ownership and interested parties
