Shareholder disputes, fraud and even theft of Intellectual Property can result in claims of a breach of fiduciary responsibilities. Vestige continues to be called in by interested parties to help establish the scope of breaches of fiduciary responsibility.

Because so much of business is conducted electronically these days, it is almost certain that activities relating to the fiduciary responsibilities of management and/or ownership (minority or majority) are encapsulated in the electronically stored information (ESI) of the organization. This can include corporate communication, e-mail communication, instant messaging, and a wide variety of other electronic sources.

Organizations and their IT departments naturally turn to the corporate e-mail systems when allegations of breaches, such as fiduciary responsibility, are made. Yet, organization after organization is surprised when they learn that not only do the involved individuals resort to other forms of communication, but more importantly, those other forms of communication are often recoverable by trained forensic analysts despite the fact that the organization's IT department has not been able to recover the evidence.

We help organizations investigating breach of fiduciary responsibilities by:

• Helping the organization establish that the individual(s) knew what their fiduciary responsibilities were
• Identifying and investigating "red flag" items that help document the alleged breach
• Recovering communication and correspondence surrounding the individual(s) fiduciary responsibilities and actions taken pro/contra those responsibilities
• Assisting counsel and other consultants with gaining access to financial data and systems to document the actions taken contrary to fiduciary responsibilities