Go Forth with (Due) Diligence
Jinfo Blog

By Sophie Alexander

Abstract

Lexis Diligence provides a convenient resource for timely access to global business intelligence in the areas of risk, compliance and fraud, with stringent Anti-Money Laundering, bribery and corruption regulations increasing the compliance burden for companies across many more sectors. Since the product was last reviewed there have been a few notable changes, making this a useful tool for organisations seeking to avoid the reputational and financial costs involved in non-compliance.

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Although there have only been a couple of relatively minor prosecutions under the Bribery Act 2011 since it became law, enforcement trends continue to rise within the areas of Anti-Money Laundering, anti-bribery and corruption. With the EU recently announcing proposals for the Fourth Money Laundering Directive, this just underlines the importance of companies needing to implement effective risk-based due diligence procedures.

With the need for such stringent procedures, organisations would certainly benefit from using a product like Lexis Diligence which is a database designed to help a company perform due diligence in the areas of risk, compliance and fraud.

Since Lexis Diligence was last reviewed a couple of years ago, it has enhanced its source content and language offerings and with its breadth of world coverage, the product has expanded its reach and become even more appealing to a global audience.

Users can still carry out all the usual background checks on a person or company, along with a negative news check, a sanctions and politically exposed person (PEP) check, a company’s litigation history and a particular country’s risk. There is also now the ability to set default preferences so that the product can be configured to reflect a company’s specific due diligence approach. Users can also edit the default list of negative terms used in the negative news search string.

The interface itself hasn’t really changed and is still very easy to use. The content is very comprehensive with access to over 23,000 global press sources, millions of global public and private company profiles for emerging and developed markets, over 500 biographical sources, over 800 sanctions and watch lists and a wealth of litigation history, as well as country risk summaries.

Of course all this information still needs to be analysed but Diligence makes this process a lot easier by having tabs for different types of information on the results screen. The ability to filter information by publication type and date also speeds up the research process.

Being able to record an audit trail to satisfy regulators is another important area for organisations and Lexis Diligence now has the ability to download a complete history of your search activity for up to 30 days. You can also decide which items to save, print or add to the Report Builder, which is time and date stamped. Searches that generated no results can be included and reports customised to prioritise information and add annotations to summarise key points.

Organisations cannot afford to cut corners when it comes to their due diligence process. With tighter government controls and the increased burden on companies of having to keep up with all the new regulations and legislation, Lexis Diligence is an important tool to have to avoid the reputational and financial fallout of non-compliance.

FreePint Subscribers can log in now to read the Mini Review: Lexis Diligence.

Editor's Note: Compliance in Context

This article is part of the FreePint Topic Series: Compliance in Context, which runs from September to October 2013. Register your interest, and you'll get pre-notification of when registration opens for any webinars in this series, as well as a free copy of the FreePint Report: Buyer's Guide on Regulatory Compliance when we publish in October.

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