Whether an investigation holds up, what the records can and cannot establish, what can still be traced, how an insured’s proof of loss stands up, or what expertise a matter needs. Describe what you are dealing with and we will tell you plainly what it would take.
Every inquiry is read by a person. If something is time-sensitive — an account still being drawn down, an audit committee meeting, a proof-of-loss deadline under a fidelity policy, an expert disclosure date, or a records request that has to go out this week — say so and it moves to the front of the queue.
Four fields are required: your name, an address we can reply to, and a description of the matter. The rest helps us respond usefully the first time rather than with a round of questions.
Thank you, your message is with the team and someone will respond, usually within one business day. If records are still being destroyed on an ordinary retention cycle, or work is continuing in-house, please act on the steps alongside — they do not wait for us.
Two things in a matter like this get worse on their own, and neither of them is the limitation period. The first is the traceable claim. Where funds have been commingled, courts commonly cap a claimant’s traceable interest at the lowest balance the account reached afterward, and later deposits do not restore what was spent — “in no case is the trust permitted to be replenished by deposits made subsequent to the lowest intermediate balance,” and an account emptied entirely takes the claim with it. In re Dameron, 155 F.3d 718, 724 (4th Cir. 1998). The records run down on their own schedule alongside it: Bank Secrecy Act retention is generally five years, 31 CFR 1010.430(d), which is a floor rather than a guarantee, though many institutions keep records considerably longer. The second is privilege. There is no federal accountant-client privilege, and retention of the accountant through counsel under a Kovel arrangement protects work done to assist counsel in giving legal advice — not the review the company already completed on its own, which may simply be discoverable. It works forward only. So three things are worth doing this week, and none of them requires retaining anybody. Suspend routine destruction across the accounting system, the mailboxes and the devices. When bank records are requested, ask for the deposit items and not only the statements: a statement shows that a deposit happened, and only the item deposited shows what it was made of. And settle who is retaining whom before the next tranche of work is done, because that decision governs everything after it and nothing before it.