Marschdorf Forensics

  • Successful financial investigations reflect a strategy wherein intuition and sound judgment are equally as important as accounting for numbers and the ability to adjust to complex IT environments.
  • From solving a fraud investigation to proving the case in criminal and civil courts, Marschdorf Forensics brings the necessary skills and more than twenty years of investigative experience to the table.
  • Marschdorf Forensics combines big-firm senior partner experience with the flexibility of a small operation, the ability to function in three languages and to adapt to a variety of cultural environments.

“No entity is immune from fraud. Fraud indiscriminately affects all types of organizations regardless of sector, size, or geographical location. It does not distinguish between public or private entities, by what they do, by their environmental footprint, by their level of sustainability, by their public profile, or by the number of years they have been in existence. It is not softhearted: Non-profits or charitable entities are potentially just as vulnerable as those focused on making profits. They may, in fact, be more vulnerable because they may not be able to afford more sophisticated controls, or can not afford to allocate sufficient resources to fraud prevention and detection.”

Fraud Prevention and Detection: Warning Signs and the Red Flag System by Rodney T Stamler, Hans J. Marschdorf  & Mario Possamai

About

Hans Marschdorf

20 Years of Practical Financial Case Experience

Successful financial investigations reflect a strategy wherein the human element of the alleged perpetrator is equally as important as accounting for numbers. Essential components for moulding an effective financial investigative strategy are based on judgement, intuition, and specialty knowledge in criminalistics and information technology. Mr. Marschdorf has provided legal counsel and corporate clients with this investigative capacity from more than 20 years of practical financial case experience.

As a former leader of a cross-continental European investigations practice within a “Big 4” professional services firm, Mr. Marschdorf also provides the “Big 4” large case management experience without the potential conflict issues.

As a boutique firm operation, Marschdorf Forensics provides its services without having to be concerned about information loss from delegation to inexperienced staff, a phenomenon often observed in forensic practices of big professional services firms. When needed, we partner with hand-picked experienced practitioners in Europe and North America. Solving a fraud case is often easy. Proving the solution beyond reasonable doubt in criminal courts or on a balance of probabilities in civil proceedings is the true challenge.

Mr. Marschdorf’s case experience includes:

  • Conducting high profile investigations on behalf of corporations and governments in Canada, the Caribbean and Europe
  • Expert Witness in complex business fraud cases in several European and North American countries
  • Extensive exposure to business environments in many foreign jurisdictions
  • Contributing knowledge of fraud and lessons learned in publications and courses

His leadership experience includes managing a large investigations practice across countries in Europe and managing complex cases with interdisciplinary teams.

Mr. Marschdorf holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Cologne. As Chartered Accountant admitted in Germany, he can practice in the European Union and Switzerland. He also holds the professional designations “Certified Fraud Examiner” in the United States and “Chartered Director” in Canada. He serves as Vice Chairman on the Advisory Board to a Berlin MBA program of the Steinbeis Hochschule, School of Governance Risk and Compliance, for which he is also a member of the faculty.

EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE COUNTED DOES NOT NECESSARILY COUNT; EVERYTHING THAT COUNTS CANNOT NECESSARILY BE COUNTED.

Albert Einstein

Marschdorf Forensics

Practice Areas

FORENSIC ACCOUNTING INVESTIGATIONS

When a suspicion of fraud surfaces, Marschdorf Forensics can conduct internal investigations or support your existing resources such as your internal audit department in their investigative efforts by guiding and leading their teams. Counsels representing victims of fraud may find themselves in need of evaluating large numbers of documentary evidence. The dynamics of a fraud scheme can often be reconstructed from correspondence, in particular email correspondence or account statements including supporting documents. Correspondence often speaks through more than the mere facts expressed in a document. The frequency of correspondence between specific players, the tone of their communication often displays the nature of relationships. Sometimes, what is not being said can be more revealing than what is being said. This being said, we crunch the numbers, too, using database and spreadsheet software and working with client’s discovery management software such as “Recommind” or “Summation”.

ASSESSING AND OVERSEEING WORK PERFORMED BY LARGE INVESTIGATION FIRMS

The sheer size of materials to evaluate in some cases can make it unavoidable to engage big professional service firms. The delegation structure regularly applied within the big firm environment often means that the one or two experienced individuals on such an investigation cannot immerse themselves sufficiently in an investigation. Marschdorf and his experienced colleagues can insert themselves into investigation teams of large firms, providing the grey hair experience required to successfully bringing together the evidence to make a case.

EXPERT TESTIMONY

Expert testimony is a challenging, often daunting mandate. Giving testimony means that the expert has to have a grasp of every piece of evidence supporting or contradicting charges or claims, even those, which only seem to serve such purpose and the ability to understand the big picture. Often, investigators are barred from testifying due to bias considerations or are unable to testify, because, due to extensive delegation, they do not have enough understanding of case details to survive cross-examination. Sometimes, the issue is as simple as the courts not accepting foreign country qualifications as credentials.

In the past, Marschdorf has been admitted as expert witness and testified in the United States, Canada and several European jurisdictions, in criminal courts as well as civil courts, in cases charging money laundering, senior management fraud, bribery and procurement fraud.

COMPLIANCE RISK MANAGEMENT

Together with the School of Governance Risk and Compliance of the Steinbeis Hochschule, in Berlin, Germany, Marschdorf Forensics offers Compliance Risk Assessments based on a proprietary model developed at this University. The model allows compliance risk assessment not only in a binary mode (compliant/non compliant), but allows for gradual differentiations. The model also gives tailored directions how to improve an existing status of non-compliance risks with specific measures by evaluating quality and completeness of compliance risk management processes.

Download a PDF document with further explanation

IMAGINATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWLEDGE.

Albert Einstein

Read

Case Examples

EVERYTHING SHOULD BE MADE AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE, BUT NOT SIMPLER.

Albert Einstein

Teaching and Publishing

Academics

WE CANNOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS WITH THE SAME THINKING WE USED WHEN WE CREATED THEM.

Albert Einstein

Marschdorf

Network

 

Contact

North America:  ++ 1 705 380 1865      (via Exposure Management Ltd.)

Germany:             ++ 49 30 24342930     (via Forensic Management GmbH)

 

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