US litigation counsel needed to know what an India-rooted conglomerate actually held. The published group chart was only a starting point. Counsel needed the real asset map: operating companies across several industrial sectors, and the layer above them, where ownership ran through offshore holding structures across multiple jurisdictions.
“Each entry in the asset schedule was dated and sourced.”
The engagement, carried out during my tenure at a global investigations firm, built the map from both ends. From the record: a master list of the group's companies and assets, compiled from corporate registries and filings across jurisdictions, following each structure up through its offshore layers. From people: source intelligence from former insiders and others around the group, which reached the assets filings do not show, and the context around politically sensitive episodes in the group's history.
The deliverable was built to be used in the litigation: a condensed report for counsel, a full report behind it, and a schedule of identified assets as an appendix, each entry dated and sourced, because the other side can attack any line in an asset schedule that cannot be traced to its source.
My litigation-support work still follows this approach: the registries first, the offshore layers followed patiently, and human sources directed at the assets a group holds but does not disclose.