The case
“Officially the company performs “a deep search across the internet for all information – whether it be an article, a blog, social media posts or even a mistaken identity”. It then endeavours, on behalf of its clients, to get any negative information removed. The Guardian, however, found that over several years, the company deployed unethical or deceptive methods to scrub unwanted and damaging content from the internet.”
Source: The Guardian
The commentary
It is common practice that Swiss financial service providers scan the media landscape in the early stages of a client’s onboarding to identify risks. Negative information in the media can be the starting point for enhanced due diligence clarifications. As more cases of media and reputation laundering have become public, financial service providers need to triangulate the information as they cannot solely rely one source only (client, media, market specialists etc.).