CRA Buys Lee and Allen (April 2005)

November 22, 2008 — 585

In April 2005 CRA (Charles River Associates) bought the forensic accounting firm Lee and Allen for an estimated £8 million.

Charles River Associates Incorporated (NASDAQ: CRAI), an internationally known leader in providing economic, financial, and management consulting services, today announced its acquisition of Lee & Allen Consulting Limited, a London-based consulting firm offering financial dispute resolution and forensic accounting services to the corporate, legal, and regulatory markets. The acquisition will add approximately 40 consultants to CRA’s roster.

Under the terms of the agreement, CRA acquired Lee & Allen for a purchase price of approximately GBP 8.3 million (approximately US$15.8 million), consisting of GBP 6.3 million (US$12.0 million) in cash and GBP 2.0 million (US$3.8 million) in loan notes to be exchanged for restricted shares of CRA stock. Additional purchase consideration may be payable if specific performance targets are met. In addition to its corporate headquarters in London, Lee & Allen maintains an office in Hong Kong. Lee & Allen recorded revenues of approximately GBP 7.1 million (US$13.5 million) during calendar year 2004. CRA expects the acquisition to be accretive in the first full quarter of combined operations.

 

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FTI Buys Attenex (June 2008)

November 22, 2008 — 585

FTI bought Attenex in June 2008 for $88 million. This follows on, and fits in well, with their previous purchase of RingTail. FTI now have both linear analytical/clustering review technologies in house.

As FTI took RingTail off the market to service providers (a decision which was later reversed), it will be interesting to see how those who intend to purchase Attenex will behave.

 

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter, will add to earnings in 2009, the company said.

The Seattle-based Attenex, which had revenue of about $25 million in 2007, provides software that automates data processing and provides visualization tools for analyzing massive amounts of electronically stored information. Attenex helps corporations and their law firms comply with regulatory requests and internal investigations by assisting them with the electronic-discovery process.

Attenex staffers Kathryn Hardie, J.R. Jesson, Mike Kinnaman and Joe White will join FTI as senior managing directors in FTI’s technology segment, the company said.

The acquisition expands FTI’s software offerings, and enhances its position in the space, the company said.

 

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FTI Buys RingTail (2005)

November 22, 2008 — 585

In Feb 2005 FTI announced the purchase of the review platform RingTail

Annapolis, MD - February 28, 2005

FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE: FCN), the premier provider of corporate finance/restructuring, forensic and litigation consulting and technology, and economic consulting, today announced that it has completed its previously announced acquisition of the assets of privately held Ringtail Solutions Group (Ringtail), including its operations in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The purchase price of $35.0 million comprised $20.0 million of cash plus $15.0 million in shares of FTI common stock, plus an earn-out over the next three years based on future performance. The cash portion of the purchase price was financed by FTI from cash on hand and its existing credit facilities.

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Crown Court

November 21, 2008 — 585

The Crown Court deals with more serious criminal cases such as murder, rape or robbery, some of which are on appeal or referred from Magistrates’ courts.

Trials are heard by a Judge and a 12 person jury. Members of the public are selected for jury service or may have to go to court as witnesses.

The Crown Court is based at 77 centres across England and Wales.

It deals with cases transferred from the Magistrates’ Courts. It also hears appeals against decisions of Magistrate’s Courts, and deals with cases sent for sentence from Magistrates’ Courts.

Source: HM Courts

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Computer Misuse Act Gets an Update

November 16, 2008 — 585

The Computer Misuse Act, which was written in 1990, is better known for its failures than its successes. One of the problem with the CMA is that it is 18 years out of date, and as such has not allowed for some of the latest crimes of Distributed Denial of Service.

A Distributed Denial of Service, DDoS, uses multiple systems (the numbers can be in their thousands) to attack one other system and this type of technology just was not legislated for in 1990.

The changes came into effect on 1st October 2008 (for England and Wales), despite the change in the law being passed in 2006,  by the Police and Justice Act 2006

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Extension to the UK Firewall

November 16, 2008 — 585

The UK Government could be about to provide more infrastructure to prevent the population accessing information. This time the infrastructure is a legal frame work.

The Intelligence and Security Committee has recommended that the government create legislation to stop media outlets producing news that government does not want to.

The headline sales pitch of this is that its in the interests of “national security”, i.e aimed at military operations. But the recommendations are also that reporting on police operations can also be prohibited.

There is already the “D-Notice” in place in the UK, and despite scouring the news papers recently I have not seen any evidence of the battle plans for Afghanistan, the MI5 Org Chart, or the internal plans of GCHQ.  The occasions that the news papers have got hold of “priority” police operations is because is been leaked – that means that the police have called the news papers, to make some money or to further a political agenda, and the papers have printed it. Is it right to create new laws as the police have not got their house in order? Also, at least this way we know what’s being leaked, better this way than directly to the suspects!

The question that needs to be asked is: Do we need more laws to give the government greater secrecy?

In a different time there would have been more trust over the government, and the law in itself is not dangerous, if its well used, but with examples of misuse of data and data collection methods by the government, there is a concern that more there is greater control and monitoring of the population.

Death by a thousand cuts? Or totalitarianism through a 1,000 laws and a million CCTV cameras?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Doctor uses Medical Records …Illegally

November 14, 2008 — 585

If the evidence of the Data Guardians misusing data was not already enough, with numerous examples of the police and councils misusing information and the government losing data faster than they are giving money to the banks, another case hardly seems relevant, but it is worth reporting because its slightly different.

In this  latest case n surgeon, Mr Hans Desmarowitz, a vascular surgeon photographs, maps, personal information and medical records relating to a secretary.

This information was stored on his PC and offered to private detectives to investigate her and her boyfriend, all very creepy…and the government want to allow for more access to medical records

 

 

 

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Data Theft: Express Scripts the next stage

November 14, 2008 — 585

The Express Scripts case rumbles on, with the latest twist being that the blackmailers have now sent letters to Express Scripts clients, presumably in respond to the 1 million dollar reward for their capture. The letters told the client them what information they [the blackmailers] will release.

Is this the tip of a rarely report iceberg? A case where a blackmailer who does this regular and normally gets paid has not and is getting annoyed with it. Or is this just an isolated case? Or could this be the start of a whole new crime wave, with the offender, police, and victims crimes being played out in the media for all to see, and learn from (good education for all involved)?

Which ever option it is, its surprising that its not in the main news papers. Hacking, Data Theft, Blackmail, Rewards, Its all there!

 

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Data Theft is more common…yet again

November 13, 2008 — 585

Another day, another report. Every month there is either a report about how common data loss or data theft is, or there is a report of an actual data loss or data theft. If nothing else, we know the reports are accurate!

What is depressing is that the people in charge of the data, the Data Guardians, are not taking any serious action to stop it.

The latest report, published in the UK shows that 88% of IT staff would consider stealing data. This report matches, very closely with the another survey reported in the BBC in 2004, when it was reported that 70% of people would consider steal data (perhaps the IT people feel more capable of taking the data).

This, once again, raises the issue of not what is lost, which is report (as it is a known variable, but what has been stolen?

The data theft statistics speak for themselves, there is a lot of it and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. So for every government data “loss”, you can bet your personal details, that some has been stolen.

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Data Theft: $1 million Reward

November 13, 2008 — 585

Following the blackmail attempt on Express Scripts, they have now offered a $1,000,000 reward to try and track down the blackmailers. An interesting turn in events. If its an inside job, somebody will talk for that much!

 

 

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