CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
Daylight
Forensic’s Zimiles Says FCPA Cases about to Explode
21 Corporate Crime Reporter 14, March 29, 2007
Move over options backdating.
Hello bribery.
There’s about to be an explosion of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases.
That’s the take of Ellen Zimiles, CEO of Daylight Forensic & Advisory.
And Zimiles should know.
She spent years at the forensic unit at KPMG.
Last year, Zimiles and Joseph Spinelli – along with fourteen others – left KPMG to start Daylight Forensic. Daylight signed a non-compete clause with KPMG, but that expires on June 1.
In the ten months since leaving KPMG, they have opened offices in New York, Washington, Miami, and London. The firm now has about 70 staff, mostly former law enforcement, investigative and forensic types.
The firm is tight with former New York Governor Mario Cuomo.
Cuomo is chairman of Daylight’s board of directors.
For eight years, Spinelli was the New York State Inspector General under Cuomo.
The firm received start up money from FTVentures – a venture capital firm.
Both Bob Huret and Mark Lotke of FTVentures sit on the board of Daylight Forensic.
Daylight Forensic is not a law firm, accounting firm, or investigative firm – but it does the work of all three.
Zimiles calls it “an independent fraud risk management firm.”
She says the vast majority of her work is with big corporations, foreign based, and now focusing primarily on FCPA, money-laundering, and fraud investigations.
Did the criminal case against KPMG have anything to do with her leaving the big four accounting firm?
“I’d rather not discuss that,” Zimiles says.
Daylight has set up two e-discovery labs – one in New York and one in London.
Heading up the IT forensic operation is Carmen Field.
“Carmen is the best I’ve ever seen in this area,” Zimiles said in an interview with Corporate Crime Reporter. “She started out as an ethical hacker for NASA. She was hired for NASA to try and break into their IT systems. Inside, she’s a geek, but outside she is very articulate. She can talk to both lawyers and IT people. And she knows when someone is telling her the true story and when someone isn’t. She’s great, and she has a great team under her.”
Zimiles sees FCPA cases as the next breakout area in corporate crime.
“There will be a lot of activity, especially for foreign companies who want to do business in the United States,” Zimiles says. “And there are going to be corruption issues abroad. Look at the Siemens case in Germany. And there was a big brouhaha in the UK over BAE and Saudi Arabia. Even in China, actions were brought against the bribe takers.”
But there have been very few, if any, FCPA cases growing out of China.
“Just wait,” Zimiles says. “That’s coming.”
Isn’t the sheer amount of corporate crime ebbing?
“I
have been doing this over twenty years,” she says. “And I have never
seen a decrease in corporate criminal activity.”
(For a complete transcript of the “Interview with Ellen Zimiles,”
see 21 Corporate Crime Reporter 14 (12-16), print
edition only.)
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