Q&A with Hannah Griffin, Associate Partner at Hazlewoods.
What is keeping you busy at work?
Work for a forensic accountant can be incredibly varied and no two days are ever the same. However, there are some trends at the moment, such as divorce cases that keep coming – COVID-19 and Christmas has put added pressure on relationships, so we are busy with business valuations, liquidity assessments and considering the most tax efficient ways to fund settlements.
It is not just personal relationships that have been under strain though. We are seeing more and more shareholder disputes and parties seeking to dispose of minority share interests, both in formal court proceedings and outside of the court system. Then there are the breach of warranty claims and transaction disputes, which are hot at the moment, as well as business interruption work.
In a nutshell, lots going on to support litigation matters or to help parties resolve matters before reaching that stage.
What challenges do you face in your current work?
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down. Who would have thought that their used car could now be worth more than they paid for it?
Disruption to supply chains, enforced closures and furlough schemes means the role of the forensic accountant has become more complex. Valuing businesses often requires the valuer to assess the future maintainable profits of a business, yet the last two years have been anything other than normal! Many disputes require an assessment of the counterfactual scenario ‘How would the contract have performed but for the breach now in dispute?'
I absolutely love these new challenges and working with our team to consider and test the evidence to support our assessment. One of Hazlewoods biggest strengths is the people and their sector expertise, which has been invaluable in many of the cases we are currently dealing with.
What should clients be thinking about at the moment?
I think the message for clients is to engage early with experts. A forensic accountant can be a key member of a team involved in strategy, assessing the merits and
vulnerabilities of a claim and advising on the preservation of evidence. However, things do not need to have reached the formal dispute stage to benefit from this support, and early engagement could prevent escalation. The preservation of evidence is key, and a forensic accountant can advise on the evidence that should be captured – evidence obtained at the time of the event is more likely to be considered credible than evidence recreated when there is a dispute in process.
Tell us something that we may not know about you?
Although I am not particularly interested in motorsport now, my father designed lights for cars and I found rally driving quite exciting. I was lucky enough to sit as co-driver for the Swedish rally drivers Per Eklund and Stig Blomqvist during a visit to the UK. An experience I will never forget!
If you would like to know more, please get in touch with Hannah at hannah.griffin@hazlewoods.co.uk or 01242 680000.