Ahead of arbitration proceedings with a Southeast Asian nation arising out of an investment dispute, Nardello & Co. was tasked with gathering intelligence on the relationship between our client’s joint venture partner and the country’s ruling party. In particular, we sought to confirm allegations that senior members of the government had hidden shareholdings in the local partner that were never disclosed at the time of our client’s investment.

Primarily through discreet, on-the-ground enquiries we were able to determine that a relative of the founder of the local partner was related through marriage to the nation’s vice president. Due to the opacity and paucity of corporate records, we were not able to obtain a clear paper trail linking the government officials to the local partner but we were able to gather sufficient human intelligence to indicate that they had close links to the company. Concurrent to our field investigation, we also conducted an assessment of the government’s ideological leanings and the various competing factions within it in order to inform the legal strategy of our client.

Using the information gleaned from this twin-track approach, our client was able to reach a favorable settlement.