Corporate Internal Investigations | Expert Business Investigations

Hello, I’m Clara from My Own Detective. With years out in the field, I’ve seen how every business, big or small, can face hidden dangers. These risks can sneak up on you, coming from inside your company or from outside. When you face things like fraud, theft, or tricky unfair competition, you just have to act. This is where corporate internal investigations become really important, like a smart move in a game. They’re not just about fixing a problem after it happens; they’re about finding the truth, collecting solid proof, and most importantly, keeping your company’s valuable things and good name safe. Doing an investigation well is like shining a light into the dark corners that could hurt your business.

At My Own Detective, we are licensed private investigators who help businesses deal with these tough problems. We are really good at corporate investigations and we work in a quiet, careful way, always keeping everything private. We don’t just look at what happened; we dig deep to understand why, so we can give you clear answers and strong evidence that you can use legally. This evidence is key to helping you make smart choices, stand up for yourself, and fix things. This guide, shared from my view as a senior detective, looks at the important times when an internal investigation or even an external one is a must-do. I’ll show you how a professional partner like My Own Detective can turn a tough challenge into a chance to make your business stronger.

Why Corporate Investigations Are Crucial for Business Health

Why should you, as a business owner or leader, think of corporate investigations not as a cost, but as a vital investment for staying safe and growing? The simple answer is to build a strong, resilient business. Dangers like internal fraud, employee theft, unfair competition from outside, or bad behaviour inside the company can cause big problems. It’s not just about losing money right now. These problems can make your staff not trust each other, make your brand look bad, and in the end, even stop your business from continuing.

Carrying out a proper business investigation is a step you take to be prepared. It’s like checking the pulse of your company to find weak spots and places where things could go wrong. It’s also necessary when something bad does happen. A well-done internal investigation helps you to:

Find out the facts clearly and fairly.
Gather real, strong proof that you absolutely need for any action you take, whether it’s dealing with an employee or going to court.
Figure out how much damage has been done or could be done.
Understand how the fraud or bad behaviour happened so you can make your company rules better and stop it from happening again. This is a key part of managing risks.

Doing investigations right and getting help from professionals also sends a clear message: your company won’t stand for dishonest or unfair behaviour. This can stop problems before they start and helps everyone at your company act with honesty. It’s a key part of staying legally safe and protecting your business interests.

My Own Detective has special knowledge for corporate investigations. We know the tricky legal bits, how to investigate quietly and well, and how to turn simple information into useful proof. We always follow the rules, so you can be sure our reports will hold up legally and your rights are safe. Asking for our help means your investigation will be done carefully to get real results and protect the future of your company.

Detecting and Fighting Unfair Competition with Business Investigations

Unfair competition is a hard truth for many businesses. It’s like fighting a battle where the other side uses bad or illegal ways to get your customers or hurt your business. These nasty tricks make the game unfair and can cause big harm. Finding, proving, and stopping unfair competition needs a focused investigation plan.

Unfair competition comes in many shapes and sizes, and it keeps changing. Some common types are:

Putting you down: Spreading untrue or mean things about your company, products, or services to make customers go away.
Riding on your coattails (Parasitism): Using your company’s hard work, good name, or investments to help themselves without putting in the effort or money.
Making things messy (Disorganisation): Trying to hire away lots of your key staff, or messing up how you get your products out or make them.
Making things confusing: Copying your business name, brand, logo, or how your products look to trick customers into thinking they are dealing with your company.

To take legal action against unfair competition, you have to show three main things, like we see in many cases:

The wrongful act (the unfair thing they did), the harm (the damage your business suffered, like losing money, getting a bad name), and that the wrongful act caused the harm. Without strong proof showing these three things, your case might not work.

Our job, as detectives good at this, is to collect this proof carefully and quietly. We use different investigation methods, like:

Watching and following to see what competitors are doing.
Looking up information that is public (Open Source Intelligence – OSINT) to find connections, public actions, or things you can easily find online.
Doing specific checks on the ground to check if the information is true.

The detailed report we write after the business investigation is a very important paper. It puts together all the information and real proof we found. This gives your lawyer a strong base for taking action to make the unfair acts stop and get money for the harm done. Understanding Unfair Methods of Competition (FTC).

My Own Detective is skilled at finding exactly what the unfair competition is and gathering the facts you need to stand up for your rights and make the market fair again. It’s about fighting for what’s right and protecting the hard work you’ve put in.

Handling Employee Dishonesty: Theft, Abuse, and Misconduct

Trust is a main building block in the work relationship. Sadly, sometimes this trust is broken by staff who take advantage, especially with sick leave. Using sick leave in a wrong way happens when an employee says they are too sick to work for medical reasons they know aren’t real, or don’t really stop them from working. It’s even worse if they use this sick time to work another job; this is called undeclared work.

These actions hurt the company in clear ways:

It costs money for keeping up pay or paying taxes.
It messes up teams and makes other employees have to do more work.
It makes the work atmosphere bad and makes honest workers feel like things are unfair.
If there is undeclared work, the company could get in trouble if it’s found out and they didn’t do anything about it.

If you have real reasons to think something is wrong, your company has the right to check. This is when a private detective good at workplace investigations steps in. Our job is to see and write down the facts that show the abuse or undeclared work, while always following the rules and respecting the employee’s privacy.

We focus on watching carefully and quietly:

Watching what the employee does when they are supposed to be off sick.
Looking for public signs of them doing another job (like on websites or social media).
Seeing if the employee is working somewhere else.

The report we give you is clear and sticks to the facts, noting dates, times, places, and maybe pictures or videos (if taken legally). This proof, gathered properly and fairly, can be used in employee court cases (like the Labour Court/Conseil de prud’hommes). It helps the company take the right steps, from a warning to letting the employee go for serious reasons. Managing Employee Attendance and Misuse of Leave (SHRM).

My Own Detective does these employee investigations carefully and quietly, which is super important. We help companies deal with sick leave abuse and undeclared work to keep things fair for everyone and keep the business running smoothly. This is a key part of handling staff and keeping your company safe.

Protecting Your Assets: Enforcing Non-Compete Clauses & Battling Counterfeiting

A non-compete clause is a vital legal tool to protect a company’s business interests, especially its special knowledge, customers, and secret information. This rule, put in some business deals or job contracts for key staff, stops the person who signed it from doing a similar job or starting a similar business for a certain time and in a certain area after they leave.

For a non-compete clause to be valid, it must meet strict rules set by law and past court cases. It must be for a limited time and place, and make sense for the job or business deal. For staff, it usually means the company has to pay them something for not competing.

The problem comes up if you think a former business partner or employee is not keeping their promise and is breaking the non-compete clause. This can directly hurt your company by taking your customers, using your special knowledge, or using secret information.

An investigation by a private detective is often the only good way to get the proof you need that this is happening. Our job is to:

Find out exactly what the person or company is doing.
Find proof that they are working with your old customers or partners.
Gather real evidence (like talking to people, public papers, things seen on the ground) that proves their work is competing with yours and is in the area and time frame the clause covers.

Our investigation report will clearly show what we saw, with dates, times, places, and any proof we got. This report is the base for legal action you can take to make them stop and get money for the harm done. Enforcing Non-Compete Agreements (National Law Review).

My Own Detective is great at doing these sensitive business investigations. We help you check if non-compete clauses are being followed and protect your company’s important stuff from unfair acts.

Now, let’s talk about counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is a big problem everywhere, hurting businesses from fancy clothes to car parts, medicines, and computer programs. It directly attacks your company’s intellectual property – your brands, inventions, designs, and copyrights. Besides losing money right away, counterfeiting really damages your good name, makes your brand worth less, and can even put people in danger with fake, unsafe products.

Because counterfeiting often involves complicated, sometimes worldwide, groups, just watching isn’t enough. A deep investigation is needed to find the root of the problem. Our investigation aims for counterfeiting are many:

Find the people who make, sell, and deliver the fake goods.
Find the places where fakes are made, kept, and sold (both real places and online).
Show how big the counterfeiting activity is.
Gather the proof the right people (like customs or police) and courts need to step in.

Doing a counterfeiting investigation needs special skills and ways of working. This can include:

Buying test products to get samples and find out who is selling them.
Watching places to find where fakes are stored or given out.
Looking online very carefully to find sales websites and social media used.

Our investigation report shows the path the fake goods take and gives the real proof needed (like pictures, videos, names, addresses) for legal action. Acting fast and correctly is key to stop the harm and protect your market. My Own Detective knows how to help businesses hurt by counterfeiting. We do the needed investigations to find the groups and gather the proof so you can use your intellectual property rights and make the market clean again. Understanding Counterfeiting and Piracy (Interpol).

Securing Business Deals: Commercial Investigations and Due Diligence

While corporate internal investigations look at problems inside your company, external commercial investigations focus on the people you do business with: big customers, important suppliers, possible partners, companies you might buy or join with. These checks, often called “due diligence,” are a must before you make big business deals.

The goal of an external commercial investigation is to check if the other party is trustworthy, has enough money, has a good name, and is honest. Doing business with someone questionable can put your company at big risk:

Money risks: They don’t pay, their company goes bust, you invest in a company that doesn’t have money.
Good name risks: Your company is linked to a company that had scandals, did illegal things, or acted unfairly.
Work risks: A partner can’t do what they promised in the deal, your supply chain isn’t reliable.
Legal risks: Getting pulled into business fights or court cases you didn’t know about.

My Own Detective does deep external commercial investigations to give you a clear picture of your future or current partners. Our checks cover different areas:

Checking the official name and setup of the company.
Looking at their money situation and if they can pay debts (using public info and business reports).
Checking their good name in the market and with old partners or customers.
Finding out about the people running the company and the owners (if they are honest, what they did before).
Finding any business fights or court cases they had or are in now.

Our due diligence report gives you the main facts to weigh the risks and make a smart choice. These investigations are a key tool for managing risks and staying safe in business. They help you stay away from trouble and build strong business links based on trust and being open. Knowing who you are dealing with is the first step to keeping yourself safe.

Also part of this is checking employee CVs. Hiring the right person is super important. Hiring the wrong one can cost a lot and even put your company’s safety, good name, and honesty at risk. Many people don’t tell the whole truth on their CVs about their education, past jobs, or why they left. Checking CVs and references is a key safety step before hiring, especially for important jobs. An investigation like this helps make sure what the candidate says is true. My Own Detective does these checks carefully and quietly, giving you a clear report so you can hire knowing all the facts and protect your company.

Navigating Legal Challenges: Contract Disputes and Termination Issues

Business deals are built on contracts. These papers set out what each side promises to do and make sure business goes smoothly. But sometimes, one side just stops following the contract on their own. If they do this without a good reason, in a sudden or unfair way, it’s called an abusive termination of a commercial contract. This can really hurt the company that was wronged, causing them to lose money and messing up their work. This damage should rightly be fixed.

In these situations, a focused business investigation becomes a strong legal tool. The goal is to gather proof that shows the termination was abusive and that the other side didn’t have a good reason. Our work as detectives is to look back at the messages and events before the contract was broken:

Checking emails, letters, and meeting notes to find signs, warnings, or maybe messages that showed the relationship was going well.
Checking the reasons given for breaking the contract: Are they real? Are they serious enough to just stop the contract right away? Were there other ways they could have handled it?
Writing down the real ways your company was hurt by the contract ending to help figure out how much money was lost.

The investigation report will give a clear timeline of what happened and show the things that prove the termination wasn’t right. This factual proof is key to building a strong legal case to get money for the harm done. Contract law gives ways to fix this, but it only works if you have good proof. My Own Detective is great at doing these sensitive commercial investigations. We know where to look, how to write down facts that can’t be argued with, and how to make our findings easy for your lawyers to use. We help you turn an abusive contract ending into a way to stand up for your rights and get paid back for the harm.

Also, dealing with anti-competitive practices is important for a fair market. These are things companies do to stop or get rid of competition, which hurts other businesses and shoppers. Finding and proving these acts is a big job for rules bodies and companies that are hurt. The main kinds are secret agreements between companies to set prices or share markets, and using a very strong market position to treat others unfairly. These acts are often hidden. Our role is to help uncover these hidden actions by looking at public info and doing checks on the ground. The proof we gather can be used to complain to the competition authorities or go to court to get money back for the harm. Understanding Antitrust Laws (US Dept. of Justice).

Our Expert Approach to Corporate Investigations

Doing a corporate investigation, whether inside or outside the company, needs careful planning. It calls for special skills, knowing the laws well, and following a strict plan. As licensed private detectives in France and Switzerland, My Own Detective promises to follow these rules to make sure every investigation works well and is legal.

Our step-by-step way of working includes several key parts:

1. Understanding your need and looking closely at the problem: Every investigation starts with listening carefully to your situation. What’s the problem? What do you want to achieve? What do you already know? Looking closely at this helps us see the main issue and plan the investigation.

2. Making a special plan for your investigation: After understanding your problem, we create a plan just for your case (like unfair competition, fraud, theft, checking facts, etc.). We pick the best ways to find the proof you need (looking at papers, watching, checking places, online checks, etc.). We always talk about this plan with you, often with your lawyers, to make sure the investigation helps with any legal goals.

3. Doing the investigation and collecting proof: Our private detectives carry out the plan. We collect information and proof very quietly and always follow the laws in the country we are working in. We are careful about keeping personal information safe and following other rules. We write down the proof we find in a careful way.

4. Always following the laws and doing what’s right: This is a main promise of My Own Detective. Everything we do is legal, makes sense for what we are trying to find, and respects people’s privacy (as much as the law allows for getting proof). Being this careful with the law means the proof we find can be used in court.

5. Keeping everything private: It’s number one: Because our investigations are sensitive, keeping everything secret is very important. All the information we handle is fully protected. Being quiet is key not just for the investigation to work (so the people involved don’t find out) but also to protect your company’s good name and business interests.

6. Writing the investigation report: When the investigation is finished, we give you a detailed report that sticks to the facts. This report puts together everything we found and shows the proof clearly. It’s made so your lawyers can use it right away in court or to help you make smart choices for your company. It shows how well our work pays off.

Choosing My Own Detective means choosing a partner you can trust. Our expert methods and careful following of the law make sure your investigation is done the best way, aiming to give you the facts you need to stand up for your rights and make the right choices for your company’s safety and future.

When and How to Get Professional Help for Business Investigations

If you think there might be a problem inside or outside your company, you should never just let it go. A doubt, a feeling, a small sign… these are often the first hints of bigger troubles if you don’t deal with them fast and well. Waiting usually costs more than acting.

You should think about reaching out to My Own Detective when you are facing a situation that makes you worried or causes questions about your business, and you don’t have the people or the special knowledge inside your company to handle it fully and legally. Here are some key signs:

You have money missing or things aren’t adding up in your stock or money records, which could mean fraud or theft inside the company.
You hear things that suggest a competitor is using unfair ways to hurt you (unfair competition, stealing business secrets).
You find fake products that look like yours being sold.
You have strong doubts about whether a long sick leave is real or if an employee is working another job secretly (undeclared work).
You think a former employee or partner is not following their non-compete rule.
You need to check if a future business partner or a key job candidate is trustworthy and honest before you commit (due diligence, checking CVs).
You have a complex situation where you need real, legal proof for a legal fight (like an abusive contract ending or a staff leaving because of employer issues).

Based in France and Switzerland, our licensed private detectives are ready to hear about your problem. A first talk, kept fully secret, will help us understand what’s going on and tell you if an investigation is right and how we can best help. Our goal is to give you the facts and proof you need to make the best choices and protect your company well.

Don’t let unsureness or problems that aren’t fixed make your business weaker. Getting in touch with professionals who do business investigations is the first step to finding answers and feeling more at ease. We are here to help you see clearly and act with purpose.

Conclusion: Investing in Investigations Means Peace of Mind and Business Future

As a detective, I see it every day: corporate internal investigations and external business investigations are not just nice to have; they are a key part of keeping any business safe and managing risks if you want your company to last. They help you deal with many dangers, whether they come from inside (fraud, theft, abuse, not doing what’s required) or outside (unfair competition, counterfeiting, tricky partners).

Giving these jobs to a licensed private detective company like My Own Detective means choosing special skills, being very careful with the law, and keeping everything fully private. We know a lot about how fraud works, the tricky parts of unfair competition, and the rules for getting proof in businesses. This means your internal investigation will be done right.

The investigation reports we create are not just simple notes; they are factual papers, detailed and backed up by legal proof. You can use them right away for your business choices or for going to court to stand up for your rights and get money back for the harm done.

Putting money into a professional corporate investigation is putting money into being open, doing the right thing, and protecting what’s important to you. It’s a way to stop bad actions, make your team trust each other more, keep your business deals safe, and in the end, help your company grow well and calmly. Corporate internal investigations, when done by experts, are a strong way to make your business tough and ready for anything.

If your company is facing a tough situation or you need to get reliable and legal proof, please don’t wait to contact My Own Detective. We are here to use our skills to help you keep the future of your business safe.

FAQ: Your Questions About Business Investigations

When should my company call a private detective?

You should call a private detective who knows about corporate internal investigations when you think something is wrong (fraud, theft, unfair competition, abuse, broken contract/rule) that could really hurt your business. You need to find out the facts clearly and get legal proof. A professional works quietly and legally, stopping things from getting worse and making sure any future court case is strong.

Is proof from a private detective usable in court?

Yes, in most cases. Proof (like reports, notes, pictures, videos gathered legally) from a licensed private detective in France and Switzerland can be used in court. But, it must be gotten in a fair and legal way, without going too far into someone’s private life. My Own Detective knows how to follow the rules to make sure our proof can be used.

How much does a corporate internal investigation cost?

The cost is very different for each case. It depends on how hard the problem is, how long the investigation takes, what is needed (like watching, searching, travelling), and any problems that come up. Every situation is different and needs a special look. My Own Detective will give you a clear price after we talk about your case. Think of this cost as an investment to stop or lower even bigger harm.

What’s the difference between an internal investigation and a commercial investigation?

An internal investigation looks at problems happening inside the company, possibly involving your staff or how things work (fraud, theft, abuse, not following rules inside). A commercial investigation, often external, looks at people outside your company (competitors, partners, customers, suppliers) to check if they are trustworthy or to prove things they did that hurt you (unfair competition, counterfeiting, breaking contracts). My Own Detective handles both types.

How long does an investigation take?

How long an investigation takes also depends on how hard it is. Some simple cases might be sorted out in a few days. Harder investigations involving many people, looking overseas, or needing long periods of watching could take weeks or even months. After we look at your situation, My Own Detective will give you an idea of how long we think it will take.