Forensic accounting is the application of accounting analysis and financial investigation to assist legal teams. A forensic accountant, for the most part, is essential to analysing and interpreting financial information.
This can assist a legal team to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the financial complexities in order to be able to present their case to the judge and jury.
Forensic Equity's accountancy team are the experts in forensic accounting. They can provide a comprehensive and unique assessment of accounting evidence. This would include assessing the soundness of the evidence presented and, in some cases, providing alternative explanations for the claims made by either side.
After an initial review of the case, we will provide a clear response as to the issues that would need to be addressed, the workload necessary and any further disclosures needed. If, for any reason we believe our services to be unsuitable in a case, we would find you alternative routes to take.
Financial Crime
Our experts are experienced in reviewing financial crime cases involving:
VAT fraud
Carousel fraud
Theft
Wrongful trading
Mortgage fraud
Long firm fraud (MTIC)
Financial Crime cases are often based on a selection of specific financial and accounting transactions.
It is our role to understand in detail such transactions and the wider financial picture as this is integral to undermining the opposing side’s case.
Proceeds of Crime Confiscation (POCA)
Our forensic accountants can:
Review POCA Evaluations
It is very likely that a person who has financially benefited from their criminal activities will be subject to a confiscation order.
The purpose of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA), is to deprive defendants of the financial benefits gained, and to return this benefit to public funds.
Under this confiscation order, if the court decided that the defendants have led a criminal lifestyle, then it can assume that any income obtained will have been through criminal means and thus a confiscation is warranted.
In such cases, it is often down to the defendant to prove otherwise, however, regularly the prosecution’s case is based on vague assumptions and lacks substantive evidence. Therefore, it is imperative that their allegations are disputed, despite not always knowing the source of income immediately. The prosecution can often double count in their results, they often include legitimate monies, and have been known to seek to confiscate excessive amounts, which can be disproportionate to the amounts originally obtained by the defendant.
Another issue is that the prosecution often claims that a defendant has hidden financial benefits as to not pay it back, thus a defendant’s assets are often assessed as being significantly higher than those available for confiscation.
This is where our forensic accountants can assist, by providing evidence which proves that the prosecution’s claims are excessive and unfair.
Our forensic accountants can:
Understand the rules of POCA, analysing and unpicking complicated sets of data.
Link the flow of monies between various accounts and thus prove their source.
Check receipts and expenditure to source documentation and identify transactions that arise legitimately.
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