Case Study
Find Facts Fast Uncovers Critical Evidence in Canadian Fraud and Collusion Case
A high-level employee at a Canadian organization was the subject of a fraud and collusion lawsuit from a previous employer. The organization needed to quickly and discretely determine whether the employee was engaging in similar behaviour in his current position. FTI Technology’s E-Discovery Consulting and Services experts in Canada were engaged to help execute a detailed analysis and ensure defensible processes given the possibility of further legal proceedings.
Situation
The client collected more than 1.15 million documents relating to the employee in question and his close colleagues. Given the employee’s history at his previous employer, the client was concerned that similar fraudulent activity was taking place within its organization and that other colleagues were potentially involved.
Given the sensitivity of the matter and the scope of the documents that needed to be reviewed, the client needed a fast and efficient way to definitively determine whether these concerns were merited. Moreover, the client required a complete audit trail for the entire document collection and review, to uphold defensibility in case additional legal action against the employee was needed.
Our Role
FTI Technology’s team collected, processed and loaded the 1.15 million records into Relativity. The team applied FTI Technology’s novel Find Facts Fast solution to conduct an analytic review. A small team of Find Facts Fast researchers leveraged a variety of analytical tools and workflows to establish an understanding of the information within the document set. Within three days, this approach allowed the team to defensibly set aside 1.06 million documents as irrelevant to the matter.
With an intimate knowledge of the facts and key players established, the team split the remaining records into two categories. First was a set of documents to be searched for high-value keyword hits. The other team grouped all remaining records by clusters. During days four through 10, the team uncovered numerous hot documents that were relevant to the investigation. They also continued to set aside irrelevant records. The team then used analytical tools to expand on the hot documents and discover similar trends and documents. Within less than two weeks, the team had identified over 50 hot documents.
The next step was to provide a comprehensive audit document to the client, to summarize all hot documents. The team also provided the client with a defensible walkthrough of the documents that were culled and set aside as not relevant, including a detailed overview of the steps taken to identify relevant records and summaries of each of the clusters.
Our Impact
FTI Technology was able to help the client leverage the power of the Find Facts Fast approach to uncover critical information and documents within a tight deadline. Within the first three days, 92% of the document population had been eliminated as irrelevant to the case.
FTI Technology’s approach provided significant cost savings compared to a traditional document review workflow. Had the engagement been handled using conventional approaches, the budget would have been up to 30 times more expensive and the timeline would have at least tripled in duration.
The team’s findings were used to allow for a more comprehensive investigation into the individual, led by FTI Consulting’s Forensic Litigation Consulting segment.