Richard Freeman is a Director in FRA's London office. He is a forensic accountant with over 15 years’ experience in matters involving fraud and corruption, internal investigations, regulatory investigations, and due diligence. His experience spans a wide range of industries, including banking, oil and gas, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. ​

Richard managed an FRA team of more than 30 forensic accounting professionals supporting Airbus in a multi-year forensic accounting review within the context of the company’s multinational investigation, reporting to four investigative authorities: UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Department of State (DOS) and French Parquet National Financier (PNF). FRA’s work involved the analysis of large volumes of financial data to satisfy the demands of dozens of teams of instructing lawyers and reporting to authorities. He liaised with a wide range of stakeholders within Airbus, from finance staff to the C-suite, and worked with international legal teams to answer multiple regulators’ requests.​

Richard was also part of the FRA team supporting a Global 500 manufacturing company and their external counsel with a post-acquisition ABAC due diligence review of operations around the globe. He led the review into the company’s European region, which consists of operations in 13 countries.​

Richard regularly works with clients and their external counsel on internal investigations. He has recently managed investigations related to revenue recognition, related party transactions, asset misappropriation, and potential sanctions breaches. He also assisted on a regulatory investigation into whistleblower allegations of non-financial misconduct. ​

He assisted with a shareholder dispute for a family business based in the Middle East. This involved tracing funds of USD 249 million across over 200 companies in various jurisdictions and quantifying the value of payments made to certain beneficiaries.​

Additional representative experience includes:​

• Leading global cash and asset tracing investigations to support court-appointed receivers in two high-profile matters​
• Reviewing the conduct of a team of foreign exchange traders as part of a regulatory investigation​
• Managing a team of 90 professionals globally on a third-party due diligence review​

Richard is ACCA qualified and has a bachelor's degree in Business and International Finance from Oxford Brookes University.​