Case Studies

The work, anonymised

A selection of recent mandates. Names, figures and identifying details are altered or withheld — the shape of the work is not.

ZÜRICH · DUBAI · 2025 – 2026

Discretion is a term of every engagement, so these studies are deliberately incomplete: sectors are broadened, jurisdictions grouped, amounts rounded away. Where a client can be recognised, the case does not appear at all.

What remains is what matters to a prospective client — the question we were asked, how the evidence was established, and what the client could do with the answer.

01Private banking

Source of wealth, established

A private bank faced an UHNW onboarding with an opaque exit two decades ago. We reconstructed the transaction from registries, notarial archives and contemporaneous records across three jurisdictions — until the client's account of 2004 and the paper trail of 2004 said the same thing.

Scope
  • 3 jurisdictions · historical registry extracts
  • Source-of-wealth corroboration file
  • 4 weeks · senior-led
OutcomeOnboarding approved on a fully sourced file.
02Family office

The counterparty behind the deal

Ahead of a co-investment, we mapped the target's ownership through two holding layers and surfaced undisclosed litigation around a key principal — before signature, not after. The findings were specific enough to renegotiate on, not merely to worry about.

Scope
  • UBO mapping · litigation history
  • Adverse media, sourced to origin
  • 10 days · pre-signing
OutcomeTerms renegotiated before signing.
03Litigation support

Assets, traced across borders

For counsel in a shareholder dispute, we traced proceeds through layered vehicles into real assets — each step tied to a document a court could rely on. The tracing note became the backbone of the recovery strategy.

Scope
  • 5 vehicles · 4 jurisdictions
  • Document-tied tracing schedule
  • 8 weeks · with external counsel
OutcomeA recovery strategy grounded in evidence.
04Digital assets

The OTC desk that wasn't

A treasury preparing a seven-figure USDT settlement asked us to verify the broker first. The desk's 'licence' belonged to a dissolved consultancy, its settlement wallet to a third party, and its principals to an earlier operation we had documented elsewhere. The trade did not happen.

Scope
  • Licence & registry verification
  • Wallet & settlement-history analysis
  • 72 hours · urgent mandate
OutcomeCounterparty declined; funds never moved.
05M&A integrity

Sanctions exposure, carved out

In a cross-border acquisition, screening showed the target clean. Our structural review did not: one distribution subsidiary sold, through a payment agent, into a sanctioned market. We sized the exposure, documented it, and the deal closed with that entity carved out.

Scope
  • Group structure & trade-flow review
  • Sanctions-exposure memorandum
  • 6 weeks · alongside deal counsel
OutcomeDeal closed with the exposed entity excluded.
06Corporate

An agent network, vetted

A European manufacturer inherited forty sales agents through an acquisition. We vetted the network against registers, watchlists and local records; most were exactly what they seemed. Three were not — including one invoicing entity owned by a customs official's family.

Scope
  • 40 counterparties · 12 jurisdictions
  • Tiered integrity review
  • 9 weeks · rolling delivery
OutcomeThree relationships ended; the rest documented.

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