Forensic Services

BDO Forensic Services in Ireland is part of BDO’s global network of successful, experienced and innovative forensic and dispute advisory practices.

We have a reputation for delivering value for money and helping our clients achieve their goals. Our clients range from companies and major law firms to regulators, public sector and not for profit organisations.

Our forensic and dispute advisory team includes lead practitioners in forensic accounting, litigation support, dispute resolution, professional negligence, insurance claims, fraud and financial investigations, financial crime, anti-bribery and anti-corruption, forensic technology and valuations.

Forensic Accounting and Commercial Dispute Resolution

Our forensic accounting and dispute resolution team helps to quantify loss or financial exposure across a variety of industry sectors and jurisdictions. We support our clients and their legal advisers in all stages of the dispute process.

We have a network of forensic accountants who have developed a reputation for providing a highly effective, quality service in this field.

Our forensic services team has considerable experience of providing evidence in Court. Our expert witnesses have provided expert opinions on quantum or professional negligence in hundreds of cases. They are supported by a team of specialists who combine forensic accounting, audit, tax and industry experience.

BDO has a dedicated and highly experienced forensic accounting team committed to helping clients resolve the most challenging commercial disputes. The team also provides support for litigation and international arbitration.

Our services include:

Expert witness and litigation support.
Reviewing initial information and providing preliminary analysis on liability and quantum
Drafting assistance (letters before action, statements of claim, witness statements)
Calculation of quantum of loss
Independent opinions on technical accounting matters
Insolvency investigations and contentious insolvency litigation support
Investigation of electronic disclosure
Assistance at mediations and settlement negotiations
Company and partnership valuations
Shareholder disputes
Professional negligence
Taxation transactions
Warranty claims

Expert witness:

Our team has considerable experience of providing evidence in commercial dispute cases in Court. Our expertise includes understanding the legal process and explaining the complexities of issues such as loss of profits, loss of value, wasted expenditure, contingent losses, loss of chance and professional negligence for the Court or tribunal to understand.

Our expert witnesses have provided expert opinions on quantum and professional negligence in hundreds of cases. Supporting them is a team of specialists with forensic accounting and investigative skills and experts in most sectors from across the BDO network.

International commercial dispute resolution and arbitration:

BDO has a dedicated and highly experienced forensic accounting team with the insight to solve the most challenging accounting disputes and support litigation and international arbitration.

We work closely with colleagues from across BDO’s international network to support clients on multi-jurisdictional disputes. Our expertise includes understanding the legal process and the issues in dispute, explaining the complexities of issues such as loss of profits, loss of value, wasted expenditure, contingent losses, loss of chance and professional negligence for the Court or tribunal to understand.

Our specialist Professional Negligence team comprises leading advisers on auditing and accounting negligence cases. Our team includes practitioners with recent audit and accounting backgrounds, many of whom act as expert witnesses and mediators.

Fraud and Financial Crime

Our extensive experience of tackling financial crime and fraud has taught us the importance of acting quickly and getting expert assistance. Achieving a rapid response can be critical to the success of any investigation.

Our team brings together fraud and financial crime experts with a range of backgrounds in criminal investigations, forensic accounting and forensic computing and are skilled at conducting sensitive financial investigations. We regularly conduct large-scale, complex investigations for the UK's leading law enforcement, prosecution and regulatory agencies, as well as for corporations, major banks, foreign governments and law firms.

We work closely with colleagues from across BDO’s international network to provide expertise across the globe no matter where the issue is discovered or what business sector it is in.

Our investigation services include:

Rapid response fraud investigation
Investigation into accounting irregularities and financial misstatements
Corruption and bribery investigations
Regulatory investigations (including Skilled Person assignments)
Asset tracing and recovery
Investigations linked to contentious insolvency matters
Quantification of loss
Background checks and desktop reviews
Specialist advice to the board on next steps

We advise businesses on the detection and prevention of financial crime and fraud. This includes anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) and anti-money laundering (AML). We help clients understand the financial crime and fraud risks relevant to their business. We also help them develop best practice procedures and solutions which protect their businesses against the threat of economic crime.

Our services include:

Development of fraud prevention measurers – including advice on recruitment, codes of conduct and systems and controls
Anti-Bribery and Corruption advice including Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018
UK Bribery Act and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) advice
Review of anti-bribery systems and risks
Development of anti-bribery controls
AML and Counter Terrorist Finance (CTF) advice
Development of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Politically Exposed Person (PEP) procedures
Whistleblowing and Protected Disclosures Training
Pre-transaction due diligence

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Forensic Technology and Computing

BDO has extensive experience in guiding clients through all phases of the disclosure process, from information governance through to presentation in court, in a timely and cost efficient manner. We combine our vast experience with the use of state-of-the art technology to support you. We continually strive to make this complex and labour intensive part of litigation as simple and effective as possible.

Global Reach

BDO has forensic technology capabilities in over 17 countries spanning each continent. We share knowledge, tools and processes globally across the team to ensure a consistent approach following best practices. This enables BDO to ably assist you with your multijurisdictional forensic collection, analysis and eDisclosure needs.

Data scoping/mapping
Defensible forensic data collection
Data interrogation, including forensic image analysis of personal computers, servers, mobile devices and other data sources
Processing and hosting of data for electronic disclosure
Application of and consulting on cutting edge technology, including Technology Assisted Review and continuous machine learning
Expert witness services and trial support
Backup & archive data restoration
Structured data analytics
Social network intelligence analysis

We take a consultative approach in assisting our clients by applying the appropriate tools or methodologies to achieve the best outcome. As such, we may utilise data analytics at any stage of an engagement, for instance to target data collection or optimise keyword search strategies. We also use analytics to interrogate large volumes of transactional data e.g. to identify potentially fraudulent or duplicative transactions.

The project team at BDO has had extensive experience of offering and supporting technology assisted review tools ranging from Relativity analytics right through to the new generation of analytics, Brainspace.

BDO uses market-leading processing software to allow indexing and analysis of large data volumes. This stage allows the client to quickly cull irrelevant data, produce detailed reports on data content and estimate future costs, time scale and resources required downstream.

BDO partners with Relativity, the world’s most used review tool. Relativity can be accessed securely across the globe and can even be deployed remotely. This review tool is both intuitive to use and can support small to large review teams reviewing anywhere from a few gigabytes of data to multimillion documents. The dashboards allow the review manager to clearly understand the workflow and timing / resources that will be required to get the job done.

BDO’s eDisclosure team works with a reliable and trusted review provider in order to provide a seamless managed review service. BDO will effectively manage the review, providing regular reports tailored to your needs and quality control processes to ensure that you can trust the results.

We understand that disclosure is not the end of your matter. We have relationships with court presentation and trial support providers. Evidence bundles can, and often do, require change throughout trial and we can work together with you and your chosen provider to ensure that changes and updates are carried out in an accurate and responsive manner at this crucial time. We are also able to act as expert witness to any of the forensic technology services that we have been involved in.