In the #MeToo era, the stakes are high for corporations failing to rout out sexual harassment.

Allegations of predatory behavior bankrupted Harvey Weinstein’s company and forced Steve Wynn out of the company he co-founded, sending Wynn Resorts stock on a roller coaster ride.

In response, corporations and private equity firms are turning to private investigators like Dan Nardello — a former federal prosecutor at the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, who now runs his own firm — in droves.

“An ounce of prevention is really worth a pound of cure here, because the cost of potential drop in stock price, legal and PR cost — the possibility of regulators getting involved and regulating industries — they are enormous compared with the relatively modest expenditure in hiring folks like us in order to rule out this behavior,” said Nardello, CEO of Nardello & Co.

The veteran private investigator — Nardello has 25 years in the detective business — has seen about 35 percent more client calls related to sexual misconduct over the last six months.VIEW INTERVIEW & READ MORE

Head of the Atlanta Office and General Counsel of the Americas, Steven D. Grimberg, and Head of Digital Investigations and Cyber Defense, Mark Ray, discuss best practices for cybersecurity due diligence in Emory University’s Corporate Governance and Accountability Review.read more

Nardello & Co. Associate Managing Director, Amie Chang, is quoted in this Compliance Week article on China’s newly created National Supervisory Commission (NSC):

The establishment of a powerful new anti-corruption enforcement body in China makes it imperative that foreign multinational companies carefully review existing interactions with public officials in the country and enhance their due diligence and third-party risk management efforts.

On March 20, China’s legislature—the National People’s Congress (NPC)—passed the Supervision Law, granting broad and powerful investigative and enforcement powers to the newly created National Supervisory Commission (NSC), the highest ever anti-corruption agency in China. The NSC is the merging of the Ministry of Supervision under the State Council (China’s Cabinet) and the anti-corruption investigation department of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (the agency at the national level responsible for both prosecution and investigation in the People’s Republic of China). The new NSC will also carry out the responsibilities of the Communist Party of China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

“The creation of a national supervisory system reflects historic calls to institutionalize the country’s anti-corruption drive,” says Amie Chang, an associate managing director at consulting firm Nardello & Co. based in Hong Kong. “The new setup essentially streamlines a two-track anti-corruption regime into a single-track system and bestows new powers upon the anti-corruption authorities.”

The creation of the NSC signals that political momentum for anti-corruption enforcement in China will not ease. “This is more than just a rebranding of the CCDI,” says Andy Gilholm, principal and director of the analysis practice for Greater China and North Asia at consultancy firm Control Risks. “It’s turning more proactive enforcement into a permanent feature of the environment, rather than a temporary crackdown, and creating a better-resourced and significantly more powerful agency.”read more