Forensic Investigations
MWL personnel have been involved in numerous funds tracing and fraud investigations. In a matter in which MWL was engaged by a bank defendant, we performed a multi-year funds tracing analysis to establish whether a bank customer received millions of dollars of loan proceeds, as well as to establish whether the bank customer was economically harmed by the alleged improper actions of a bank officer.
Our firm has also been involved in investigations related to the misappropriation of assets. MWL personnel were asked to reconstruct the financial records of a large private university located in southern California in order to determine the amount of money and other financial assets that were stolen by the school’s Chief Investment Officer. Also, MWL was asked by counsel to a local Fire District to identify the extent of stolen money and other acts of conversion perpetrated by the District’s Chief Financial Officer. MWL’s work was used in the criminal prosecution, as well as to determine restitution.
In another matter, MWL personnel provided testimony in a business separation dispute for which we reconstructed the financial activity of many hidden related party transactions structured by one partner to avoid payment to another partner. In yet another case, MWL personnel reconstructed records from the framing division of a general contracting firm to determine both the fact of receipts being redirected from the company, embezzlement of funds from the general contracting firm, and various illegal activity in collusion with customers of the firm; our deposition testimony ended the case. MWL personnel have also been asked to evaluate corporate alter ego issues, in which parties allegedly used multi-layer organizations to both protect against claims and attempt to shelter assets. In those cases, we analyzed substance versus form issues of multi-layered organizations, identifying economic and non-economic issues suggesting the lack of individual company substance, due to, among other issues, common management and directors, commingling of operations and assets, and questionable corporate purpose.