Crisis & Investigations

Controlling operations, fact gathering, communications and decision-making during a crisis demands a swift and coordinated response to allay internal and external stakeholders. Crisis control requires a harmonized assessment of immediate and ongoing threats, collection of critical information, analysis of business intelligence, execution of investigative fact-gathering, and documenting procedures and outcomes to establish factually sound reports that can be communicated to a variety of business, regulatory, legal and public stakeholders.

The EY organization provides crisis management services through a team of former law enforcement professionals and professionals in investigative, compliance and cyber forensics matters. Their incident response solutions include preventive assessments and reactive support for regulatory noncompliance, business fraud, corruption, sanctions, financial crimes, accounting irregularities, physical security breaches, cyber incidents and insider threats.

Crisis management services

When the unexpected happens and business is disrupted, companies can be uncertain about how to respond and address the event. EY teams offer the experience and coordination needed to identify the necessary activities and synchronize involved parties so that the response and resolution are effective. These EY professionals coordinate response activity and timelines, collect critical information and business intelligence, investigate suspicious activities, summarize procedures and outcomes, and streamline communications and reporting to respond with crisis control.

Forensic investigations

Companies reacting to internal allegations of misconduct, inquiries from regulators or whistleblowers often require assistance to collect evidence, conduct information-seeking interviews, analyze accounting and other business records, collect and review electronic communications, and prepare information for stakeholder reporting. Our integrated global network of forensic accountants, fraud examiners and former law enforcement professionals work alongside data analysts and digital forensics professionals to provide comprehensive investigative support capabilities. Our full-service investigations practice eliminates the need for multiple external advisers, reducing risk transfer while improving efficiency, outcomes and cost-effectiveness.

Digital disputes and investigations and insider threat

The key to successful outcomes always starts with the data. Companies must analyze digital evidence to uncover critical details during internal investigations, cyber incidents, data breaches or data loss situations. These are often prompted by an inquiry from a regulator, discoveries made through internal processes or specific incidents such as an employee exfiltrating data out of their network. EY teams address these needs, as well as perform proactive services to identify, prevent and detect insider risks. Our solutions are focused on optimized collaboration with government agencies where necessary. EY personnel can leverage their understanding of federal and state programs and objectives to help a client develop a consistent, and productive, collaboration with relevant agencies within applicable legal frameworks. Our professionals can also provide incident simulations to help test policies, procedures and response capabilities.

Crisis and incident preparedness improvement

Facing an escalating risk and business threat environment, companies turn to EY teams to assess and improve crisis and incident response resiliency against industry standards, leading practices and regulatory guidance governing operations. Our professionals address business resiliency risks with an “all-threats, all-hazards” mindset. They cover areas such as business and financial operations, supply chain, physical and enterprise security, governance and policy, personnel security, asset and IP protection, threat intelligence capabilities, awareness and training, incident management, and cybersecurity.

Business intelligence

Companies can learn more through risk-based, open-source diligence reports on the backgrounds of individuals and companies to identify potential red flags. These include sanctions, criminal history, litigation involvement or adverse media coverage in connection with investigations, M&A activity and third-party risk assessments. The EY network has access to hundreds of global and in-country public and proprietary databases, scalable resources, and AI empowerment to meet the need for speed and innovation in the diligence process.