A Commitment to Internet Investigations

Rothman Consulting offers a wide range of Internet Investigation options to financial, legal and corporate clients as part of its comprehensive due diligence services. As one of the world’s premier due diligence providers, our broad array of technical assets and a deeply experienced team can help you tackle Internet-related problems with real world solutions. Our investigations can identify problems and concerns generated by Internet activity (e.g., derogatory e-mail issues or coordinated smear campaigns emanating from anonymous blogs and forums or public chat room discussions), helping our varied clientele obtain the very best information and strategic advice.

Case Study

After a large fund of funds client made a major capital investment in a hedge fund, they became concerned about the presence of malicious and divisive writings on a financial blog site attacking the hedge fund and its management team. Aside from perpetuating general misgivings about the fund’s investment strategy, the derogatory commentary contained a variety of serious allegations about how the hedge fund operated and its future business prospects. 

The allegations and rumors in turn created concerns for our client about the investment activity and business operations of the underlying hedge fund.

Upon the request of our client, Rothman Consulting undertook an intensive review of the matter in order to unearth the author of the online writings and determine the extent to which these postings were being discussed online, and more specifically, in well-respected and popular financial-oriented websites.

Rothman Consulting, through our proprietary methodology, uncovered the identity of the blog poster, who turned out to be a disgruntled former employee of the hedge fund. Our research also unearthed important information showing that this smear campaign was limited to the blog site in question and had not been more widely published. Having this knowledge, our client was able to thoroughly discuss this issue with the management team of the hedge fund, issue a press release to its investors apprising them of this situation, and craft a legal strategy to permanently curtail this activity.