Issue:
CRA’s Forensic Services Practice was engaged by a specialty insurance company provider shortly after they hired two senior executives. The provider received a concerning notification from the executives’ former employer, alleging that these individuals had exfiltrated highly confidential pricing and other information in conjunction with their employment transition. The former employer was concerned that this data had been infiltrated into our client’s IT environment and was being used to provide an improper competitive advantage.
Our team’s action:
- Forensic analysis: We identified and traced numerous emails and attachments containing proprietary information sent by the executives to their personal email accounts before leaving the former employer. Our investigation confirmed that these materials had been infiltrated into our client’s IT environment and were being used in an attempt to poach former clients.
- Remediation: We developed and implemented a “purge process” to locate, purge, and confirm the permanent deletion of the misappropriated materials.
- Extended examination: We expanded our analysis to the employees’ personal devices and cloud storage, leading to the removal of additional proprietary materials.
- Legal compliance: We preserved a secure copy of the identified confidential materials on an encrypted drive for legal retention purposes.
Impact:
Our engagement team, led by Vice President and Practice Leader Kristofer Swanson, successfully resolved what had the potential to become a highly publicized, damaging, and costly business dispute between two major insurance companies. We also supported our client’s decision to terminate its recently hired executives and enabled their commitment to integrity and exquisite corporate governance.
CRA’s Forensic Services experts advise on the prevention, detection, and correction of a broad range of waste, fraud, and abuse risks and allegations. Recent assignments have included leading complex cyber incident response engagements, conducting theft of trade secret investigations, providing expert witness testimony on both liability and damages, consulting on national security/technology/trade compliance, and delivering information security and privacy monitorship services.
You are invited to reach out to any member of the CRA Forensic Services Practice to continue the conversation on this or other forensic matters.
