Yousr Khalil is a Partner at FRA and co-leads the Paris office with Senior Director, Caroline Fagard. Yousr is a forensic accountant with over 16 years’ experience in matters involving fraud and corruption, government contracts litigation, internal investigation, due diligence, compliance, and governance and risk management in the US, Latin America, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and is Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF). She is fluent in English, Arabic, and French plus has a working knowledge of Portuguese.
At FRA, Yousr oversees all the Paris office’s Forensic Accounting projects and has been leading the forensic accounting structured data analysis of a large multi-national bribery and corruption investigation for over two years, involving analysis of large volumes of financial data to satisfy the demands of instructing lawyers and reporting to authorities. This has involved liaison with a wide range of stakeholders within the client company from finance staff to the C-suite as well as working with international legal teams to answer multiple regulators requests including the US DOJ, the UK SFO and French PNF. Recently, Yousr has been assisting the French Anti-corruption Agency with its first compliance monitorship review following company payments to French officials to secure sales contracts were deemed improper. The review included the collection and analysis of financial and accounting data, high-risk transaction testing, document review and interviews.
Prior to FRA, Yousr worked for Kroll in Dubai as a senior director and was a key member of its Middle East financial investigations practice. There, Yousr was part of the team engaged by the Bahraini public prosecutor to investigate complaints submitted by the Central Bank of Bahrain and the Algosaibi Family related to the collapse of The International Banking Corporation and Awal Bank.
Yousr has been responsible for major sections of forensic review of accounting, financial and business records spanning more than five years for various multinational companies associated with alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Working with legal counsel for the client, she reconstructed financial records, researched cost charges and analyzed associated data to determine the allowability and reasonableness of such costs. The projects involved on site work in Angola, Egypt, Great Britain, Norway and India.
In addition, she has experience supporting clients in addressing their Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) and government contracts compliance issues in a wide range of industries, including: professional services; oil and gas; manufacturing; biotechnology; engineering; and information technology. Yousr developed, recommended and helped to implement “best practice” internal controls designed to strengthen and unify a company’s internal control framework. These “best practice” controls covered a wide range of activities, including approvals, authorizations, verifications, reconciliations, access controls, change management, reviews of operating performance, security of assets and segregation of duties. Yousr performed comprehensive controls testing of actual transactions for compliance with established controls.
Yousr has also worked as a managing consultant for Navigant Consulting advising on complex financial reporting and financial restatements accounting issues and FCPA investigations, and as an auditor for Arthur Andersen.
She is recognised in Who’s Who Legal Consulting Experts: Investigations – Forensic Accountants Future Leaders with clients referencing her as having ‘an impressive reputation in the French market, offering clients a wealth of expertise on matters such as fraud, compliance and risk management.’