Kroll Inc.

Kroll is an American corporate investigation and risk consulting firm that was established in 1972 and is based in New York City.[1] In 2018, Kroll was acquired by Duff & Phelps.[2] In 2021, Duff & Phelps decided to rebrand itself as Kroll, a process it completed in 2022.[3]

Kroll
IndustryCorporate investigation
Risk consulting
Founded1972 (1972)
FounderJules Kroll
Headquarters,
United States
OwnerKroll, LLC
Websitewww.kroll.com

History

Kroll was founded in 1972 by Jules Kroll as a consultancy servicing corporate purchasing departments.[4]

Kroll began its line of work in financial sector investigations in the 1980s when corporations approached Kroll to profile investors, suitors, and takeover targets.[5]

In the 1990s, Kroll expanded into forensic accounting, background screening, drug testing, electronic data recovery, and market intelligence.[5]

In 1997, Kroll merged with vehicle armoring company O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt to form Kroll-O'Gara.[6][7] The company became public and was listed on the NASDAQ as "KROG". In August 2001, the O’Gara vehicle armoring businesses were sold to Armor Holdings,[8] and the company's name was changed to Kroll Inc.[7][9] and its ticker symbol to "KROL".

In 2002, Kroll acquired restructuring firm Zolfo Cooper for $153 million. At the time, Zolfo Cooper was working on the Enron case.[10]

In July 2004, Kroll was acquired by professional services firm Marsh & McLennan Companies in a $1.9-billion transaction.[11]

In June 2008, Jules Kroll left Kroll Inc.[12]

In August 2010, Kroll was acquired by Altegrity, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.13 billion. Altegrity declared bankruptcy in 2015,[13] and Kroll was later bought by Corporate Risk Holdings, LLC.[14]

On October 21, 2016, Carlyle Group-owned LDiscovery purchased Kroll Ontrack for around $410 million[15] and operated it as a separate company. In 2018, Kroll acquired cybersecurity firm Tiversa.[16]

On June 4, 2018, Duff & Phelps purchased Kroll Inc.[17][2] In February 2021, Duff & Phelps announced plans to unify the companies under the Kroll brand.[18] On March 25, 2021, Kroll announced that it had acquired Redscan, a UK based cyber security company.[19]

Services

Background screening

Kroll's background screening division provides screening services for areas such as employment, supplier selection, investment placement and institutional admissions. Kroll's Background Screening division also includes the Kroll Fraud Solutions unit, which specializes in identity theft protection and identity restoration services.[20]

Security consulting

Kroll offers consulting services through Kroll Security Group, its Security Consulting and Security Engineering & Design division.

In 2020, Kroll was hired by the Austin Police Department to evaluate the department's policies and protocols for racism and discrimination. They presented their findings to the Austin city council in March 2021.[21]

Social media

Kroll's business and investigations practice provides background checks on Instagram influencers, using publicly-accessible online information to prevent them being 'cancelled' for problematic or potentially disreputable behaviour (e.g. tweets which includes offensive language or content).[22][23]

Other work

An agreement between the government of Ghana and Kroll for the firm to retrieve assets and investigate wrongdoings by previous appointments was subject to two lawsuits in 2020, challenging the constitutionality of the agreement.[24]Both lawsuits were dropped in April 2021.[25]

Kroll was hired in 2018 by Michigan State University during the Larry Nassar case to investigate over 170 sexual assault cases at the university.[26]

Historical cases

The Heroin Trail case

In 1987, in the prominent First Amendment case over The Heroin Trail stories in New York Newsday, attorney Floyd Abrams enlisted Kroll's help to find an eyewitness: "But was it conceivable that we could come up with an eyewitness who could be of help? I called Jules Kroll, the CEO of Kroll Associates, the nation's most acclaimed investigative firm, to ask him if he could inquire, through the extensive range of former law enforcement officials employed by him, whether Karaduman was known to be a drug trafficker in Istanbul."[27] Two weeks into the trial Kroll produced Faraculah Arras, who was prepared to testify he was involved in one of Karaduman's drug deals. "I was stunned," recalled Abrams.

Abrams used Kroll again in 1998 to investigate claims by CNN's Newsstand documentary that sarin nerve gas had been used in Vietnam in 1970 as part of Operation Tailwind.[28]

The John Fredriksen oil theft case

Kroll assisted in the trial of Norwegian shipping tycoon John Fredriksen at the end of the 1980s.

Brazilian privatization

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Daniel Dantas, the company in question, André Esteves, Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Dario Messer signed a schedule agreement to privatize Brazilian state-owned enterprises.[29]

WTC and Sears Tower security

Kroll were responsible for revamping security at the World Trade Center after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[30][31] They also took on responsibility for security at Chicago's Sears Tower following the September 11, 2001 attacks.[32] Just prior to the September 11 attacks, Kroll Inc., under the guidance of Jerome Hauer, the managing director of their Crisis and Consulting Management Group,[14] hired former FBI special investigator John P. O'Neill,[33] who specialized in the Al-Qaeda network held responsible for the 1993 bombing, to head the security at the WTC complex. O'Neill died in the attacks.

Capital outflows from the Soviet Union and Russia

In March 1992, the Yeltsin government contracted Kroll Associates to track down and find very large sums of money that had been removed from the Soviet Union prior to the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt.[34][35] In 1992, First Deputy Prime Minister Yegor Timurovich Gaidar said, "Last year saw large-scale privatization by the nomenklatura, privatization by officials for their own personal benefit."[36] Gaidar called the Communists and KGB officials criminals and that "a vigorous search" for the money trails from state-owned capital had flowed abroad virtually unchecked before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1991.[35] On March 15, 1992, the Russian government froze all capital outflows from Russia.[35] In April 1992, Kroll Associates began their investigations.[37][lower-alpha 1][35] Kroll determined more than $14 billion in 1991 real dollars had been transferred from Switzerland to New York prior to the August 1991 putsch.[36] Also, the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union along with other government agencies, such as the KGB, had transferred more than $40 billion in 2014 real dollars out of the country.[39][lower-alpha 2] The assets of the Vneshekonombank were frozen during the investigation.[36] However, numerous transactions occurred to bypass the capital flow restrictions often with the British Barclays Bank in Cyprus acting as a money-laundering center for public officials from Saint Petersburg and Moscow.[36][lower-alpha 3] According to Valery Makharadze, the government's chief inspector, many joint-stock companies were formed to provide an illegal means for capital outflows from Russia, such as the Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures[lower-alpha 4] and KOLO.[41][36][lower-alpha 5] Numerous officials became wealthy Russian oligarchs including numerous former KGB officials, prominent Communists such as Oleg Belyakov and other former Communists who headed the party Central Committee department that dealt with the defense industry, as well as Leonid Kravchenko, who was the former head of the state television and radio company.[36] Jules Kroll, the head of the Kroll Associates, uncovered hundreds of illicit transactions with massive capital outflows.[42] This outflow of capital from the Soviet Union and Russia directly contributed to severe economic conditions in Russia during Boris Yeltsin's second term, leading to its collapse, and resulting in the age of Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia.[34] Kroll investigators stated that they received very little support from Russian authorities.[43]

2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal

On 28 January 2015, the National Bank of Moldova hired Kroll to present its findings from Project Tenor involving Ilan Shor's Shor Holding and the 2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal which was part of the Russian Laundromat.[44]

Notes

  1. From 1990-1, Joseph Serio, an American, worked with the Soviet Interior Ministry as an American liaison.[38]
  2. Other estimates show that the KGB had removed $50 billion in 1992 real dollars.[35]
  3. Vladimir Putin was in charge of the Committee for Foreign Liaison, (Russian: комитет внешних связей), the Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, or the Committee for External Relations during this period. Later, he was the advisor to Anatoly Sobchak until June 1991 while Sobchak headed the Leningrad City Council from May 1990 to June 1991. After Sobchak became the Mayor of Saint Petersburg, Putin became Sobchak's first deputy and later Sobchak's first deputy mayor. By 1990, Sobchak was reviled by the KGB for his uncovering of numerous irregularities and illegal actions by the KGB and former KGB officials.[40]
  4. The Leningrad Association of Joint Ventures was formed in 1990 and had two joint ventures with Germany, one with the United States, and one with Finland (FILCO).[41]
  5. KOLO removed part of the assets of six defense and space complex firms.[36]

References

  1. Scanlon, Scott (12 October 2021). "Miller Black Associates Recruits Chief People Officer for Kroll Business Services". Hunt Scanlon Media. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  2. "Duff & Phelps Announces New Business Unit After Completing Kroll Acquisition". Duff & Phelps. June 4, 2018. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  3. "Kroll completes brand unification". consulting.us. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  4. Finnegan, William (19 October 2009). "The Secret Keeper: Jules Kroll and the world of corporate intelligence". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 5 September 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  5. "Kroll Associates, Inc. Releases Its Initial Report on the APD Training Academy | AustinTexas.gov". austintexas.gov. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
  6. Miller, James P. (16 November 1999). "Kroll-O'Gara Management Agrees to Buy Out Firm". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 20 April 2022. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  7. "COMPANY NEWS; KROLL-O'GARA TO SELL ARMORED VEHICLE BUSINESS". New York Times. 24 April 2001. Archived from the original on 27 May 2015. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  8. "O'Gara Training & Services: Our History". O'Gara Training & Services (ogaratraining.com). 20 April 2022. Archived from the original on 20 April 2022. Retrieved 20 April 2022.
  9. Meier 2021, p. 46.
  10. Hoare, Michael. "Kroll pays $153m for Enron restructuring experts". www.fnlondon.com. Retrieved 2021-09-01.
  11. Pilla, David. "Marsh acquires Kroll in $1.9 billion cash deal", Best's Review, July 1, 2004, accessed January 28, 2011.
  12. New York Times profile on Jules Kroll
  13. Brickley, Peg (9 February 2015). "Altegrity Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  14. "Profile: Jerome Hauer". Forbes. Archived from the original on May 22, 2009.
  15. "Press Releases - Stay up to Date with Ontrack".
  16. Khatchadourian, Raffi (25 October 2019). "A Cybersecurity Firm's Sharp Rise and Stunning Collapse". The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  17. Banerji, Gunjan (March 13, 2018). "Duff & Phelps to Buy Corporate-Investigations Firm Kroll". The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, New York City, United States. Retrieved March 17, 2018.
  18. Tewari, Saumya (2021-02-25). "Advisory firm Duff & Phelps to be rebranded as Kroll". mint. Retrieved 2021-09-28.
  19. "Kroll completes Redscan acquisition, expands cyber risk portfolio". securitybrief.asia. Retrieved 2021-07-30.
  20. (Press Release) "Identity Theft Restoration." Canada News Wire, 12 July 2007. "Identity Theft Restoration"
  21. "Kroll Associates, Inc. Releases Its Initial Report on the APD Training Academy | AustinTexas.gov". austintexas.gov.
  22. Moore, Matthew (31 October 2020). "Corporate detectives Kroll target Instagram stars". The Times. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  23. Ebadi, Sherine (12 May 2021). "Protecting the Enterprise from Social Media Threats". CFO. Retrieved 4 November 2021.
  24. "A-Plus sues Attorney-General, Kroll & Associates over $1m payment - MyJoyOnline.com". www.myjoyonline.com. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  25. "A Plus, Asare withdraw suits against gov't over removal of Domelevo, US$1million Kroll Associates cash saga". Modern Ghana. Retrieved 2021-10-20.
  26. "Here's what MSU got for paying elite firm $6.2 million to investigate 170 sexual assault cases". Michigan Radio. 2019-04-18. Retrieved 2021-09-22.
  27. Abrams, Floyd (2005). Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment. Viking Press. pp. 124–137. ISBN 0-670-03375-8.
  28. Robin Pogrenbin and Felicity Barringer (July 3, 1998). "CNN Retracts Report That U.S. Used Nerve Gas". The New York Times.
  29. EDITORIAL: AEPET está solidária com Duplo Expresso
  30. Douglas Frantz (September 1, 1994). "A Midlife Crisis at Kroll Associates". The New York Times.
  31. Carey, Carol (1 July 1997). "World Trade Center". Access Control and Security Systems Magazine.
  32. "About Us > History > Notable Cases". kroll.com. Archived from the original on 2007-01-06. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
  33. Kolker, Robert (17 December 2001). "O'Neill Versus Osama". New York.
  34. Dawisha, Karen (2014). Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?. Simon & Schuster. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-4767-9519-5.
  35. Bohlen, Celestine (March 3, 1992). "U.S. Company to Help Russia Track Billions". The New York Times. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  36. Sneider, Daniel (March 4, 1992). "Russia Goes After 'Party Gold': Money Communist officials allegedly shifted out of the country is called crucial to reform". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  37. Dawisha p. 19
  38. Dawish p. 19
  39. Dawisha p. 18
  40. Dawisha p. 55, 88
  41. Dawisha p. 65
  42. Tikhomirov, Vladimir (1997). "Capital Flight from Post-Soviet Russia". Europe-Asia Studies. 49 (4): 592. doi:10.1080/09668139708412462.
  43. Belton 2020, pp. 60–61, 513.
  44. Kroll Staff (2 April 2015). Project Tenor - Scoping Phase. Kroll Inc. Retrieved 6 July 2021.

Books

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