Loretta Rice

Loretta is a Senior Associate in FRA’s Forensic Accounting team in the London office. Loretta has experience in due diligence, asset tracing, and bribery and corruption investigations, with a particular focus on Middle Eastern jurisdictions.

Prior to joining FRA in January 2023, Loretta spent several years at Kroll where she led business intelligence and due diligence projects for financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies, including monitoring, pre and post transactional projects, to help assess and advise clients of potential risks, including political, financial, sanctions, legal, bribery, money laundering, and reputational risks. Prior to this she worked at a specialist investigations firm providing investigative support in high-stakes international litigation and arbitration cases, including asset traces and complex corruption and bribery investigations.

Representative experience includes:

• Carried out research on behalf of a Hedge Fund, analysing prospective investments in the healthcare sector in the UK and the Middle East. Flagged discrepancies in sources of funding between subject-provided financial disclosures and publicly available information, enabling the client to make a fully informed investment decision.
• Performed in-depth research into complex corporate structures to trace ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) of a major mining site in Iran, protecting a client from breaching US sanctions. This involved analysis of Persian news media, discreet enquiries with sources in Iran, and the in-country acquisition of corporate record information.
• Performed research into individuals with links to sanctioned jurisdictions, in particular Iran, Iraq, and Libya. Establishing the extent of these links enabled multiple clients in the financial sector to assess potential sanctions exposure.
• Compiled evidence to demonstrate a multi-jurisdictional Middle Eastern corruption and bribery scheme involving major companies, including identifying and interviewing witnesses and whistle-blowers.
• Successfully located and assisted in the recovery of the assets of a Middle Eastern debtor and provided evidence in support of preliminary attachment orders.

Loretta graduated with a degree in Arabic and Persian languages from the University of Cambridge.