Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog

The online magazine of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners is a great resouce for tips on uncovering the varying forms of business fraud. You can click here to view it.

A recent issue of the magazine had a very informative article about how certain types of documents are susceptible to employee forgies and other frauds . The article had this to say about fax invoices:

FACSIMILE DOCUMENTS

Facsimile documents, even though they’re reproductions of original documents, are considered original source documents. So fraud perpetrators often use them to support fictitious disbursement transactions because internal reviewers or even external auditors aren’t likely to question them. Faxes obviously still have a legitimate purpose for emergency or other rush transactions. However, the organization should always require that vendors subsequently mail the original source documents to them. The staff should hold the faxes until the original source documents have been received and then file them with any other documents supporting the disbursement transaction.

Unscrupulous employees might use the organization’s fax machine to send themselves vendor invoices. So always double check the vendor’s fax telephone number shown on the top of the facsimile with numbers in the organization’s vendor file, in the telephone book, or from the vendor’s website. And be suspicious if the number is missing; fraud perpetrators might have removed it from the faxed document before processing it. A fax in the file doesn’t necessarily mean the transaction is valid.

DiTommaso-Lubin's Chicago business trial lawyers have more than two and half decades of experience helping business clients on unraveling complex business fraud and breach of fiduciary duty cases. We work with skilled forensic accountants and certified fraud examiners to help recover monies missappropriated from our clients. Our Chicago business, commercial, and class-action litigation lawyers represent individuals, family businesses and enterprises of all sizes in a variety of legal disputes, including disputes among partners and shareholders as well as lawsuits between businesses and and consumer rights, auto fraud, and wage claim individual and class action cases. In every case, our goal is to resolve disputes as quickly and sucessfully as possible, helping business clients protect their investements and get back to business as usual. From offices in Oak Brook, near Waukegan, and Elmhurst, we serve clients throughout Illinois and the Midwest.

If you’re facing a business or class-action lawsuit, or the possibility of one, and you’d like to discuss how the experienced Illinois business dispute attorneys at DiTommaso-Lubin can help, we would like to hear from you. To set up a consultation with one of our Naperville and Chicago business law attorneys and class action and consumer trial lawyers, please call us toll-free at 1-877-990-4990 or contact us through the Internet.

DiTommaso-Lubin's Chicago business trial lawyers have more than two and half decades of experience helping business clients on unraveling complex business fraud and breach of fiduciary duty cases. We work with skilled forensic accountants and certified fraud examiners to help recover monies missappropriated from our clients. Our Chicago business, commercial, and class-action litigation lawyers represent individuals, family businesses and enterprises of all sizes in a variety of legal disputes, including disputes among partners and shareholders as well as lawsuits between businesses and and consumer rights, auto fraud, and wage claim individual and class action cases. In every case, our goal is to resolve disputes as quickly and sucessfully as possible, helping business clients protect their investements and get back to business as usual. From offices in Oak Brook, near Wuakegan, Aurora, Highland Park, Wilmette, Elmhurst, and Chicago, we serve clients throughout Illinois and the Midwest.

If you’re facing a business or class-action lawsuit, or the possibility of one, and you’d like to discuss how the experienced Illinois business dispute attorneys at DiTommaso-Lubin can help, we would like to hear from you. To set up a consultation with one of our Chicago, Joliet, Waukegan, Wheaton, or Naperville business trial attorneys and class action and consumer trial lawyers, please call us toll-free at 1-877-990-4990 or contact us through the Internet.

Below is a video by a forensic accountant and certified fraud examiner discussing common forms of fraud that cause losses to businesses. The video provides solutions to protecting your business from fraud.

DiTommaso-Lubin's Chicago business trial lawyers have more than two and half decades of experience helping business clients on unraveling complex business fraud and breach of fiduciary duty cases. We work with skilled forensic accountants and certified fraud examiners to help recover monies missappropriated from our clients. Our Chicago business, commercial, and class-action litigation lawyers represent individuals, family businesses and enterprises of all sizes in a variety of legal disputes, including disputes among partners and shareholders as well as lawsuits between businesses and and consumer rights, auto fraud, and wage claim individual and class action cases. In every case, our goal is to resolve disputes as quickly and sucessfully as possible, helping business clients protect their investements and get back to business as usual. From offices in Oak Brook, near Wheaton, Naperville, Evanston, and Chicago, we serve clients throughout Illinois and the Midwest.

If you’re facing a business or class-action lawsuit, or the possibility of one, and you’d like to discuss how the experienced Illinois business dispute attorneys at DiTommaso-Lubin can help, we would like to hear from you. To set up a consultation with one of our Chicago, Wheaton, Elmhurst, Geneva, Aurora, Elgin, Rockford or Naperville business trial attorneys and class action and consumer trial lawyers, please call us toll-free at 1-877-990-4990 or contact us through the Internet.

One of the best websites to learn about consumer law issues and to find lawyers who focus on consumer rights issues is the website of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

The website contains numerous links to sections on Auto Fraud, Lemon Law, Predatory Lending Practices, Credit Reporting Problems and Debt Collection Abuse.

Class action lawsuits our firm has been involved in or spear-headed have led to substantial awards totalling over a million dollars to organizations including the National Association of Consumer Advocates, the National Consumer Law Center, and local law school consumer programs. DiTommaso-Lubin is proud of our achievements in assisting national and local consumer rights organizations obtain the funds needed to ensure that consumers are protected and informed of their rights. By standing up to consumer fraud and consumer rip-offs, and in the right case filing consumer protection lawsuits and class-actions you too can help ensure that other consumers' rights are protected from corporate misdeeds.

Our Naperville, Wheaton, Oak Brook, and Chicago consumer attorneys provide assistance in consumer fraud and consumer rights cases including in Illinois and throughout the country. You can click here to see a description of the some of the many individual and class-action consumer cases we have handled. A video of our lawsuit which helped ensure more fan friendly security at Wrigley Field can be found here. You can contact one of our Chicago area consumer protection lawyers here who can assist in lemon law, unfair debt collection, junk fax, prerecorded telephone solicitations, and other consumer, consumer fraud or consumer class action cases by filling out the contact form at the side of this blog or by clicking here.

New guidelines for fighting fraud have just been released by three leading professional organizations. "Managing the Business Risk of Fraud: A Practical Guide" is sponsored by the ACFE, The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Principles for establishing effective fraud risk management, regardless of the type or size of an organization, are outlined in the guide.

Download "Managing the Business Risk of Fraud"

Our commercial litgation attorneys work closely with auditors, accountants, forensic accountants and certified fraud examiners to determine the extent of the damages your business has suffered due to fraud. We bring suit to recover the lost funds. Our experienced business and commercial litigation attorneys with offices in or near Naperville, Wheaton, Oak Brook and Chicago have helped businesses and individuals recover substantial losses in individual or class action lawsuits arising from business fraud by vendors, employees and others. To review a summary of the business and fraud lawsuits we have handled click here. To contact us for a free consultation about business fraud or other business litigation issues fill out the form on the left side of this blog or click here.

As Chicago business, shareholder rights and commercial law litigators, we frequently handle cases involving allegations of business fraud or financial mismanagement, often as part of complex business dispute, that require significant expertise in financial issues. When handling a divorce involving a family business or other closely held company, we also sometimes find we need an expert's help properly valuing the business, so we can help our clients get the most equitable possible distribution of marital property.

Our Chicago, Oak Brook, Wheaton and Naperville business trial attorneys have handled many complex business and commecial law litigation matters which have involved presenting or cross-examining accounting witnesses.

While we're confident in our legal skills, these situations call for specialized financial skills. To give our clients the best possible representation in business, shareholder and other commercial disputes, we sometimes retain a forensic accountant or fraud examiner. Both of these jobs are twofold: They help attorneys and their clients understand the complex financial aspects of their cases, and they may also be called to testify as expert witnesses. A forensic accountant's job is to examine a person or corporation's accounts "cold," from the outside; the subject isn’t generally expected to cooperate. Similarly, a fraud examiner delves deep into a company's finances, looking for the source of anything that seems inconsistent or suspicious. Both can serve as expert witnesses who help establish the value of a business or testify to the existence of fraud.

The goal for both forensic accountants and fraud examiners is to make sure the other side of the case is being completely truthful about its income and accounting practices. As you might imagine, this is a frequent concern in divorces involving a spouse who’s part of a small or closely held business, which may need to be properly valued for the divorce. The company may also need to be investigated when the owning spouse is believed to be hiding assets. However, this concern also comes up in business disputes, such as breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits. When minority shareholders believe the majority is withholding important financial information, using a forensic accountant or fraud examiner may be the most reliable way to discover and prove the truth.

This practice is relatively recent but growing; a simple Web search turns up many accountants and examiners who regularly serve as expert witnesses. Two legal journals serving our Midwestern neighbors, The Wisconsin Law Journal and Michigan Lawyers Weekly, offer online articles on the subject for lawyers who want to learn more.