Background
Justin Cooper was engaged by one of Europe’s largest importers of American Food & Drink products, to provide an independent review of anomalous transactions identified by the company’s management. These transactions were potentially included in financial statements and representations made to outside parties. The transactions had previously been investigated and reported on by a third party
Role
- Reviewed and independently verified the content of the third party report.
- Conducted further investigation to provide more detail around the identified transactions.
- Established the circumstances surrounding the anomalous transactions through interviewing employees, understanding the companies systems and processes, and analyzing data from their SAP system.
- Reviewed group financial data to assess whether there was any indication of further anomalous transactions.
- Acquired a full backup of the SAP database, containing all tables and data.
- Interrogated the database directly, allowing access to all data, history and logs captured by SAP.
- Took digital images of company devices (laptops, servers, and mobiles) and e-mail accounts to extract key evidence of activity.
Outcome
- Verified the third party report and provided extra detail, discovered through the investigation of SAP data.
- Established the digital trail left by the employees who were responsible for the anomalous transactions, enabling them to ascertain the exact circumstances surrounding the transactions, which led to appropriate disciplinary action being taken by the company.
- Enabled to the company to settle outstanding concerns of misrepresentation to outside parties and maintain their relationships with no further action necessary.