Author: Kate Winter

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2024 Report: Challenges to Investigations

Access to Data is the biggest internal challenge investigators face according to a white paper published today by the ACi.

“From navigating legal and ethical constraints to overcoming internal resistance and resource limitations, corporate investigators must be adept at handling a myriad of obstacles,” says Ash Sharma who authored the paper. “By understanding these challenges, organisations can better support their investigative teams and enhance their overall effectiveness.”

The ACi has published the paper ahead of its annual event, The ACi Symposium, which takes place at Evelyn Partners in London on 21st November.

Read the paper here.

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News

Confide Forges Strategic Alliance with ACi to Elevate Industry Standards

Partnership with ACi’s Extensive Network to Enhance Confide’s Market Position and Product Offerings

London, United Kingdom

5 February 2024

Confide, the revolutionary governance, risk, and integrity platform founded by Wirecard whistleblower, Pav Gill, announces a strategic collaboration with the Association of Corporate Investigators (ACi). This alliance positions Confide at the forefront of industry innovation, harnessing ACi’s vast member expertise to significantly enhance its product offerings.

The collaboration with ACi, with its network of seasoned corporate investigators, opens new avenues for Confide to refine and tailor its solutions. By tapping into the deep well of ACi’s practical knowledge and experience, Confide will dramatically improve the functionality and relevance of its products, addressing the current market’s unmet needs.

Pav Gill, CEO & Founder of Confide, states, “Partnering with ACi is a game-changer for us. Besides being an industry-first, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to leverage their extensive network and insights, enabling Confide to revolutionise our offerings and better serve the investigative community and beyond.”

Ashu Sharma, Head of the Advisory Panel at ACi, adds, “Our members’ expertise combined with Confide’s innovative approach will undoubtedly lead to superior products that redefine industry benchmarks. Our joint efforts will drive unprecedented innovation and excellence in the services we provide to our members and the industry at large.”

Through this partnership, Confide aims to not only enhance its existing solutions but also to ideate new, cutting-edge tools that align with the real-world challenges and complexities faced by corporate investigators.

This strategic collaboration with ACi signifies a major leap for Confide in its mission to lead and transform the corporate investigation landscape through collaborative innovation and expertise-driven product development.

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News

Banking Investigators Forum

Ashurst was delighted to host the ACi Banking Investigators Forum on 5th October 2023. We enjoyed insightful discussions between banking investigators and key industry figures to analyse the evolving regulatory challenges and economic pressures experienced by banks. A short summary of key takeaways from these sessions is available here for download, which features a number of the thematic issues identified. 

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Members News Research

Member survey 2023

This June we are reaching out to members to see if they’d like to get more involved with building the ACi. As you’re aware, the Executive Committee at ACi are all volunteers, who have full-time in-house investigations roles. The popularity of the Association means we are always on the lookout for subject matter experts who are willing to share knowledge and experience, and for investigations professionals who want to give back to the profession by reaching out to their networks to expand ACi’s mission.


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News

Banking Investigators Forum Round up

On Thursday, 26th May ACi proudly hosted its first Banking Investigators Forum event, kindly sponsored by Forensic Risk Alliance. The event was attended by banking investigators from 80 different banks and covered a range of issues, all of which had been selected by delegates as points of interest.

Our prestigious speakers included:

  • Colin Bell, CEO, HSBC
  • Stephen M Kohn, Managing Partner, Kohn & Kohn LLP
  • Jonathan Shatford, Head of Investigations, JP Morgan EMEA
  • Madalina Florea, Head of SM?MRT Investigations, Lloyds Banking Group
  • Michael Delf, Global Employee Conduct Director, Citibank
  • Charlie Steele, Partner, FRA
  • Dave Francis, Head of Litigation & Investigations, NatWest Bank Plc
  • Lorene Wiggin, Managing Investigator, NatWest Bank Plc
  • Gerben Schreurs, Partner, FRA
  • Jamie Brown, Executive Director, Head of Fraud Intelligence and Investigations, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Paul Carroll, Manager, Fraud Inestigations, Intelligence & Policy, TSB
  • Ronan Guckian, Deputy Head, Financial Crime Unit, KBC Bank
  • Magdalena Boskik, Head of RegTech and Crypto Compliance Services, Sygnum Bank
  • Katerina Androutsou, RegTech & Crypto Compliance Services, Sygnum Bank
  • Robert Clarke, Managing Director, Global Head of Investigations, Citibank
  • Cecillie Fjellhoy, romance scam victim

During the day, delegates grappled with a range of issues such as whether investigative interviews should always be recorded, the current crypto landscape and what it means for investigators, and skills and tools that investigators should have for successful outcomes.

The day was ably managed by Simon Scales who had the delegates giggling in their seats with his engaging and witty moderating style.

Feedback from attendees has been outstanding. For example one delegate said,

“The event was run really efficiently, the venue was excellent but mostly important the speakers and subject matter was just brilliant. Often I see people on their phones at lot at these events catching up with emails etc but as I looked around, like myself everyone was listening intently. It really was one of the best conferences I have attended in many years (ignoring the pandemic). Thanks to everyone involved, with a little special mention to Simon who I thought was amazing as an MC.Already looking forward to the next one, please keep my details within your database. I will be selling the events for you as I speak with all of my bank investigator contacts throughout the whole industry. So many of them would have benefitted and enjoyed yesterday.”

You can read our event programme here. Thank you to everyone involved especially our sponsor Trevor Wiles and the FRA team, Simon Scales, our speakers and not least of all the delegation who made it such a special event.

We look forward to seeing everyone next year.

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External Events News

Tweets from #RelativityFest

ACi’s Steve Young, Mary Eastwood Jones and Manu Hanspal had an exceptional reception at #RelativityFest in London this May, as they revealed the Association’s new Investigations Principles and Guidelines and Investigations Typology (available in the ACi Members’ Area).

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27 April 2022 – Members Meeting

Our next members’ meeting takes place on Wednesday 27th April at 12.30 – 1.30 pm UK time. Members are invited to attend via teams meeting invite. Please visit the members area for information.

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News Webinars

Add your voice to the #BreakTheBias Campaign

This year, in support of the International Women’s Day 2022 campaign #breakthebias, ACi is collecting quotes, anecdotes and thoughts from our corporate investigation community on working with, hiring, promoting or supporting women in corporate investigations, or your experiences as a woman working in corporate investigations and how we can all break the gender bias. You can read all about the campaign here.

Please share your views with us – just click the button below to send us your quote.

QUOTE ME

Women’s Day Webinar

You can also register for our #Breakthebias Women’s Day event. It takes place on Wednesday 8th March 2022 from 12.00 pm – 1.30 pm. Click here to see details of our women panellists and register for your free place.

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Articles Members News

New Members’ Resource

ACi members can read Chapter 21 of GIR’s ‘The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations (sixth edition). The chapter, written by ACi’s CEO Steve Young focuses on Whistleblowers: The In-house Perspective. The document is available in our members’ area. To purchase the full guide, visit:

https://globalinvestigationsreview.com/guide/the-practitioners-guide-global-investigations/2022

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News

Announcing the appointment of Alex Gaft as ACi Advisor

The ACi is excited to announce the appointment of Alex Gaft as ACi Advisory Panel Member. As a seasoned corporate investigations professional, Alex will provide the ACi with advice on corporate investigations management, cyber fraud, networking, and will contribute to the ACi’s key projects (including training, investigation standards, and knowledge bank).   

Alex has over 20 years of professional investigation experience at both national and international levels, within the public and private sectors.  Alex started his career in 2001 as an investigator with the Israeli National Police. From 2010 to 2012, Alex worked as a Regional Head of Forensic Audit for ArcelorMittal, covering CIS and based in Ukraine. In 2012 Alex joined ENRC in London as Group Head of Investigations and between 2014 and 2018 led Corporate investigations team, covering 7 countries in CIS, for Veon, based in Amsterdam. In 2018 Alex returned to Israel and worked in Cyber Security and Cyber Fraud prevention. Since January 2020 Alex is heading Forensic Services team for BDO. He holds an MBA and is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Certified Information systems Auditor (CISA), and is Certified in Financial Crime Prevention.  

Speaking of the appointment, ACi’s Executive Director, Mary Eastwood Jones, said: 

‘Alex has been a very proactive ACi supporter for some time- in fact, he introduced me to the ACi community.  Alex is a highly skilled and talented subject matter expert, networker, and horizon scanner. He really has his finger on the pulse of the key emerging issues of importance to corporate investigators, and we are excited to be working with him for the benefit of our community.’  

Please join us in welcoming Alex as an official member of our Advisory Panel.