Profile: Brian Stapleton

Brian Stapleton is the head of the London office and co-founder of Kroll’s Financial Investigations practice.

Having graduated in law and secured a place at the Criminal Bar, Brian began his career in the City, where he worked for five years as a futures broker operating largely on the international currency and metals markets.
 

Brian joined Kroll’s Business Intelligence and Investigations practice in 1997.  He has been Head of its Business Intelligence division, and has run Kroll’s European practice.  He has run numerous assignments for clients from the U.K, Europe, the Former Soviet Union, Middle East and North America involving work undertaken in all of these geographies.

Examples of work

• Assisted Motorola and Nokia pursue the recipients of $3 billion in trade credit and cash in Turkey.  In this high-profile case, Kroll’s research helped the clients to a court judgement that awarded them the entire amount of the money owed to them, plus interest and damages of an additional $1.25 billion. Over the course of a 2-year engagement, Kroll’s research has identified over $200 million in fixed assets to date, including companies and valuable real estate in the UK, the Channel Islands, the US, Switzerland, Jordan and Turkey.  As a result of our research, the subjects’ bank accounts, including up to £200 million in the UK and up to $800 million in Switzerland are the subject of freezing orders.
• Investigating the alleged misappropriation of assets following the collapse of Parmalat Spa and assisting in the preparation of claims against third party financial institutions. The investigation involved examining financing and securitization deals put together by major investment banks as well as reviewing cash flows out of the business and tracing their ultimate destination. Many destinations were offshore and hidden by complex corporate veils that required uncovering. The assignment also involved tracing assets belonging to the family outside of the company.
• Led an investigation into alleged bribes paid to public officials by the Ukrainian subsidiary of a US multinational. The investigation involved conducting extensive interviews, analysis of financial records and preparation of findings for inclusion in a report to the US authorities.
• Conducted a major investigation into alleged breaches of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by the Indian subsidiary of a major US multi-national corporate. The project involved conducting extensive interviews with employees in India, supported by a forensic accounting analysis, and examination of electronic data and e-mails.
• Conducted a major internal investigation for a Russian multi-national into an alleged breach of internal corporate governance guidelines. The investigation successfully identified those involved in the breach and the nature of the wrongdoing undertaken.
• Managed an investigation into the senior management of a Turkish subsidiary of an international advertising company.  Management were suspected of artificially inflating revenues of subsidiaries and falsifying the extent to which rebates had been received by the company.
• Led an investigation on behalf of lawyers representing a Sudanese national whose manufacturing facility in Khartoum had been bombed by the US government.  Kroll were required to assist the client in examining evidence against the client.  We also worked in conjunction with the lawyers to assist in preparing a case to release assets frozen.

Education

• B.A. Honours Degree, Law