Nardello & Co. was retained by a US law firm for litigation support in the criminal defense of an employee of a multinational company who was indicted for alleged FCPA violations relating to privatization investments in Azerbaijan.

The government’s case relied in large part upon the assumption that the employee would not have made his problematic investment if he had conducted adequate pre-transaction due diligence. As part of his defense, we conducted historical “snapshot” due diligence to show that at the time that the investment was made, due diligence would have provided ample reason for the client to proceed with the transaction. The government’s case also relied heavily on information provided by several fact and expert witnesses. We conducted an investigation of those witnesses in various locations, including the US, the UK, Turkey, Serbia, Russia, Cyprus, Azerbaijan and Australia.

There was evidence to suggest that the witnesses had ulterior motives, which put their credibility in question. The law firm was able to use our findings to have the indictment against its client dismissed.