Increasing global transactions and regulatory scrutiny are forcing companies to reassess their business relationships in order to evaluate risks, undertake informed negotiations, and to comply with regulatory mandates.

Failure to adequately screen agents, business partners and clients, and to understand how they operate can expose a company to potential reputational damage, operational risks, government investigations, as well as monetary penalties and criminal liabilities.

Part of managing risk involves being certain of whom you are dealing with, both internally (those you entrust to run your business) and externally (those with whom you do business); particularly if you have interests in unfamiliar jurisdictions where reliable and accurate information can be hard to obtain.

KPMG's global network of CI professionals gathers and assimilates information from various public and non-public sources to help companies make informed decisions on issues such as joint ventures, investments, recruitments, mergers and acquisitions, and disposals.

In addition, Astrus, KPMG’s secure on-line due diligence tool, could provide a robust and cost-efficient way to obtain information and may support the assessment of risks associated with customers, agents and counterparties.

Astrus uses advanced search technologies to cover an extensive range of online public data sources such as the global sanctions and regulatory enforcement lists, corporate records, court filings, and press and media archives.  Important integrity and reputational information may be identified and interpreted by our dedicated team of CI professionals to help clients assess potential reputational, regulatory and jurisdictional risks.

Astrus could also provide companies with:

• Access to data from multiple premium data sources in multiple jurisdictions
• Clear and concise summary of key findings and possible risks
• Single point of entry and delivery via the Astrus portal tools
• Web-based access to CI/commission reports
• Objective assessment of facts related to potential integrity risk issues