Professional notice
AlixPartners has a made a series of significant recent additions, including former government officials, to help bolster the firm’s investigations offering.
The firm
Founded in 1981, AlixPartners is a leading global consulting firm with over 2,100 professionals based in 25 offices across the world. The firm has conducted large-scale investigations in over 40 countries with a team of accountants, fraud examiners, anti-money laundering specialists, and a host of former SEC officials.
In 2020, the firm significantly expanded the size of its investigations, dispute and risk team with the acquisitions of consulting boutique Matrix Economics and Freeh Group International Solutions, a risk management firm founded by former FBI director Louis Freeh. The acquisition of the Freeh Group added 24 people to AlixPartners, including Freeh himself, who is now a managing director at the firm. Other notable individuals to join after the merger include John Rahie, a former general counsel in General Motors’ Europe division, and Michael Welch, a former head of the FBI’s cyber division.
The firm has made some recent significant hires, including Jim Barratt and Beth Musumeci in Washington, DC and Cliff Lam in Hong Kong. Barratt is a former managing director at Ankura Consulting who specialises in anti-corruption and accounting cases including enforcement proceedings brought by the DOJ and SEC. Lam previously led the fraud risk management team at Standard Chartered Bank for the greater China and North Asia regions. Musumeci, a cybersecurity veteran, was previously a partner for IBM’s healthcare and life sciences security services practice. Before joining IBM, Musumeci served as vice president of cybersecurity for GE Healthcare. She now leads the firms’ cybersecurity and data privacy practice.
Those additions strengthen an already stellar offering from AlixPartners. In particular, the firm can boast the Washington, DC-based managing director Susan Markel, a former SEC official. Markel’s reputation in the market is such that in 2021 she was featured in GIR’s Women in Investigations and Top FCPA Practitioners surveys.
The firm has 12 practitioners listed on Who’s Who Legal: Investigations.
Among them is Germany-based managing director Günter Degitz and director Veit Bütterlin. Both work on fraud and other financial crime cases. Bütterlin previously handled investigations in-house at German carmaker Daimler.
Half those listed in Whos’ Who Legal: Investigations work in the UK. They include Kathryn Britten, Andrew Grantham and Gavin Williamson, who are all highly experienced with financial investigations.
In Hong Kong is Colum Bancroft, a veteran investigator with over 25 years’ experience handling matters in China and further afield in Asia.
Recent events
AlixPartners conducted a forensic investigation for Purdue Pharma in a bankruptcy related probe prompted by the US DOJ. The firm was hired to trace 10 billion in cash transfers that were sent to benefit Purdue’s owners. AlixPartners worked alongside Davis Polk & Wardwell in the investigation.
The firm’s staff have experience working on a string of monitorships, including Volkswagen, Walmart and Bilfinger.
AlixPartners acted on Volkswagen’s three-year monitorship following the company’s cheating emissions scandal. AlixPartners was specifically tasked to conduct root-cause analyses and make recommendations to address some of the deficiencies. In September 2020, Volkswagen successfully completed its monitorship after it met its obligations under the terms of its settlement with the DOJ, which included strengthening its corporate compliance programme and risk management.
While running his own firm, Freeh was appointed in 2019 to oversee a two-year FCPA monitorship for Walmart, which concluded in 2021. The monitorship was part of a three-year non-prosecution agreement in which the US retailer agreed to pay $283 million to resolve foreign bribery charges.
The firm helped German construction and engineering company Bilfinger update its policies and procedures in the context of a monitorship imposed on the company as part of an FCPA settlement with the US Department of Justice. The monitorship ended In 2018.
Network
AlixPartners has 25 offices across the globe, including in New York, Washington, DC, London, Zurich, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Clients
AlixPartners has worked on matters involving the likes of Volkswagen, Walmart, Bilfinger and Purdue Pharmaceuticals among its clients.
Track record
GIR has previously reported that the firm was retained to analyse the potential disgorgement to be paid to US authorities as part of an FCPA settlement for a European telecommunications company.
AlixPartners helped a US manufacturing company to investigate allegations that certain companies it partnered with were overcharging for services. AlixPartners conducted on-site interviews of the individuals who allegedly defrauded clients. The investigation was the basis for a settlement between the manufacturing client and the companies at issue.
AlixPartners is a results-driven global consulting firm that specialises in helping businesses successfully address their most complex and critical challenges. Our clients include companies, corporate boards, law firms, investment banks, private equity firms and others. Founded in 1981, AlixPartners is headquartered in New York, and has offices in 25 cities in the US, Europe and Asia.
It’s not what we do that makes a difference, it’s how we do it. Tackling situations when time is of the essence is part of our DNA - so we adopt an action-oriented approach at all times. We work in teams with specific industry and functional expertise, and we hit the ground running. Because our people are assured problem-solvers, our distinctive breadth and depth of experience means we’ve dealt with most situations before and we move quickly from analysis to action. We stand shoulder to shoulder with our clients until the job is done, and only measure our success in terms of the results we deliver.
Our investigations, disputes and risk practice advises clients on matters regarding forensic accounting, expert services, litigation and arbitration, and e-discovery and data analytics. Our group of over 350 professionals includes accountants, economists, former regulators, data analytics and legal technology experts who regularly consult on regulatory, financial and digital investigations and disputes, forensic accounting, and asset recovery, and we are often appointed as a monitor or independent examiner. We leverage state-of-the-art technology to drive our investigations, guide clients through their challenges, and implement our integrated approach across offices.
The way we work - with our clients, as well as with each other - is as much a part of who we are as what we actually do. It's what makes us different - and the partner of choice for some of the world’s most successful, as well as challenged companies. When it really matters.
Website: www.alixpartners.com