Neelay Mehta

Neelay’s relevant professional experience includes:

• Investigations involving ethical violations, misconduct, conflicts of interest, vendor favoritism, misappropriation of funds, infringement of intellectual property rights, whistleblowing allegations, bribery, and corruption.
• Performed fraud/anti-bribery due diligence on the target of a merger and acquisition deal for a global private equity client. Examined the corporate environment, interviewed key function leaders to understand the tone at the top, reviewed the compliance-related policies and procedures, performed sample transaction testing on compliance-sensitive accounts across the accounting records of the target to assess the target’s bribery risk and risk of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
• Conducted forensic investigations pertaining to ethical misconduct by senior management of a large global hospital. Investigation included review of the electronic communications, books, and records maintained by the hospital, gathering information by performing market intelligence as well as interviewing multiple individuals at the hospital.
• Neelay represented the firm in the Bombay High Court as an expert witness to examine allegations of infringement of patents, copyrights, and proprietary information of the plaintiff against a set of former employees of the plaintiff. The investigation focused on claims that the former employees had unlawfully obtained, stored, and used the confidential information of the plaintiff to carry out a competing business while the plaintiff had exclusive rights to operate and sell the patented technology in India.
• During the investigation, multiple traces of data that belonged to the plaintiff’s database were discovered on the local systems of the former employees, and the evidence confirmed that a substantial amount of data was stolen and used to carry out a competing business illegally.
  • Conducted fraud/financial crime investigation with a focus on FCPA violations for several international pharmaceutical companies. Conducted transaction testing on employee expenses, including reviewing supporting documents and researching external information sources, performed data analytics to analyze spending patterns and expenses charged in the company’s books, and composed a case summary. The work performed assisted the companies in making disciplinary actions against the involved employees and enhancing their internal controls.
  • He has performed forensic review for the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets on a sanctioned entity to identify import transactions with a sanctioned country.
  • He has worked closely with regulators like the Central Beareau of Investigation and the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on high-profile investigations.
  • He has led multiple forensic audits as per the directions of SEBI and stock exchanges on the stock brokers. The investigations revealed information pertainig to unethical and illegal practices by the stock brokers and subsequent termination of their licences.
  • He has assisted Odisha State Police and Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) management in investigating one of the largest gold burglaries that was staged to cover misappropriation of gold by the employees working at the branch of the NBFC.
  • He has conducted multiple forensic audits for Non-Performing Assets (NPA) as per the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, for banks in India.
  • Led multiple engagements pertaining to third-party due diligence reviews. Gathering and analyzing public domain information, as well as gathering intelligence to identify trends and patterns
  • He has led transformation journeys for multiple clients in the ethics and compliance domain. Right from assessing the risks, setting up policies / procedures / SOP / Employee Code of conduct, conducting training, and communications and continuous monitoring.
  • Assisted statutory audit teams in evaluating fraud risks, assessing the compliance landscape with respect to FCPA compliance, designing specific audit procedures to mitigate risks, reviewing ethics and anti-fraud environments, and conducting C-Suite leadership interviews within risk and compliance functions.