Case studies

Nordic Telecommunications Company

FRA was instructed by Telia Company (market cap: over $17 billion) and its counsel in the UK, US, the Nordics and Holland to provide forensic accounting and eDiscovery consulting services in the investigation of the Scandinavian telecoms company.

Challenge

FRA was instructed by Telia Company (market cap: over $17 billion) and its counsel in the UK, the US, the Nordics and Holland to provide forensic accounting and eDiscovery consulting services in the investigation of the Scandinavian telecoms company. The company was alleged to have made improper payments to secure licenses in Eurasia. FRA was subsequently engaged to advise Telia during the settlement and disgorgement case with US, Dutch and Swedish authorities.

Action

Initially, FRA assisted external counsel to review historic Eurasian investment activities and report to the Corporate Board. However, to comply with emerging demands from various enforcement agencies, FRA was instructed to collect, preserve and lock down structured and unstructured data held locally in Eurasia and in other related jurisdictions. To comply with local national security laws, data could not be removed from the Eurasia region. We acted quickly to deploy a Mobile Discovery Solution on an enhanced laptop that could be delivered rapidly via hand carry luggage. Despite its small footprint, our Mobile Discovery Solution provided impressive processing rates.

This highly sensitive exercise required FRA to send numerous data experts to Eurasia over a period of twelve months. We customized a workflow involving a sophisticated culling process, applying our experience of the telecommunications industry and data governance to manage massive volumes of data without contravening state secrecy laws.

Solution

FRA was able to process and filter the data to satisfy international enforcement agency demands while still complying with all local national security laws. In addition, FRA amalgamated structured financial data from multiple jurisdictions and entities to support granular forensic accounting transaction enquiries. As in many FRA client engagements, we were able to deploy bespoke solutions in native languages.

Instructing lawyers requested that FRA continue to assist the investigation, culminating in groundbreaking negotiations over financial penalties ($965 million) and disgorgement ($457 million) with regulators in the US and the Netherlands.

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Related contacts

Derek Patterson

Partner

,

London

Greg Mason

Founding Partner

,

Providence

Related expertise

Bribery and Corruption

Disgorgement and Penalty Calculations

Complex Data Solutions

Forensic Technology

Data & Technology

Forensic Accounting

Regulatory Investigations

eDiscovery, eDisclosure and Digital Forensics

Internal Investigations

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