Welcome back to the podcast, bribes, swindle, or steel.

I'm Alexandra Rogge and we've been reaching out to listeners to ask what they'd like to hear

more about on the podcast.

There is clearly interest in due diligence challenges and given that Trace has great

expertise in this area, I didn't

have to look very far for today's guest, Pia Vining.

Pia is the lawyer who heads Trace's due diligence team, more than 55 lawyers and analysts

speaking 34 languages. She and her team of managers not only oversee the reports we produce,

but Pia also resolves the close calls

for our Trey certification reports.

That is, what should be flagged in the report and what constitutes a deal breaker.

Pia, in your more than 10 years with Trace, you've supervised over 100,000 due diligence

reports of different kinds.

Given that there's really a finite number of issues that can arise in third-party due diligence reports of different kinds. Given that there's really a finite number of

issues that can arise in third-party due diligence, let's talk a little bit about the five

issues that you see most frequently. Let's start with beneficial ownership, as we know that

companies struggle with this and it's just a constant headache. Obtaining full and true beneficial ownership is, of course, one of the main reasons for

conducting due diligence generally.

There is sometimes, though, general reclactants to provide full ownership details down to

the individual level.

Third-party intermediaries often have difficulty providing this information when they have

complex company structures involving other companies' ownership information. So when there are several

...