Location: Victoria, London
Sector: Property Development
Reason for Surveillance: Litigation Support and Evidence Gathering
Background
A property development firm based near Victoria instructed Bond Rees in connection with an escalating contractual dispute with a former joint venture partner. The firm alleged that its former partner, having exited the joint venture eight months earlier, was in ongoing breach of a non-compete and non-solicitation clause by covertly approaching the joint venture’s former subcontractors and, the client suspected, using confidential project cost data to undercut the client on a subsequent, competing development in the same part of London.
With litigation already being contemplated, the client’s solicitors were clear that any evidence gathered would need to withstand disclosure and cross-examination, which meant our work needed to be conducted with litigation-standard rigour from day one.
Our corporate investigators met with the client’s litigation solicitors before accepting the instruction, specifically to agree how our investigative work would sit alongside their own legal strategy, since poorly coordinated evidence gathering can sometimes create disclosure complications later in a dispute rather than resolving them. We agreed that all instructions to Bond Rees would be routed through the solicitors and treated as being conducted for the dominant purpose of anticipated litigation, a distinction that mattered considerably when the question of legal privilege over our working papers arose later in the matter.
The Brief
We were instructed to establish, through lawful and proportionate means, whether the former partner was in fact soliciting the joint venture’s former subcontractors and whether there was any indication of confidential cost information being used in the competing development’s tender process. Throughout, we worked directly with the client’s litigation solicitors to ensure our methodology and documentation would meet the evidential standards required for potential court proceedings.
The Investigation
We began by identifying the joint venture’s key former subcontractors — five specialist firms across groundworks, structural steel, and mechanical and electrical services — and conducted open-source research into their current and recent tender activity, including Companies House filings and planning application records for the competing development, which is a public record in itself and often an underused source of investigative detail.
Planning documents for the competing development listed a project quantity surveyor whose LinkedIn profile showed a prior, undisclosed working relationship with the former joint venture partner. We conducted proportionate physical observation of a public pre-tender briefing event for the competing development, at which two of the five former subcontractors were confirmed in attendance — itself significant, given the non-solicitation clause’s specific prohibition on approaching these named contractors for a defined period.
We further obtained, through a subcontractor willing to cooperate as a witness, a copy of an approach email sent by the former partner that referenced specific unit cost figures closely mirroring those in the original joint venture’s confidential cost plan — a document that had never been shared outside the joint venture structure.
Because litigation was a live possibility from the outset, we maintained a formal evidence log throughout, recording the source, date, and method of acquisition for every document and witness account, and ensured that any physical observation was conducted from public land only, with detailed contemporaneous notes of vantage point, timing, and weather conditions — the kind of unglamorous detail that rarely features in a summary but becomes essential if a witness statement is later challenged on cross-examination. We also took care to approach the cooperating subcontractor in a manner that could not later be characterised as inducement, making clear at the outset that their cooperation was voluntary and that we could not offer anything beyond a fair and accurate record of what they told us.
Once the pre-action correspondence was drafted, we worked with the client’s solicitors to prepare a formal witness statement from myself setting out the investigative methodology, which is standard practice in litigation-support work but often overlooked by less experienced investigators — a court, or an opposing solicitor assessing settlement risk, needs to understand not just what was found but how it was found and why it can be relied upon.
Findings
Our evidence established attendance by former joint venture subcontractors at the competing development’s tender process within the restricted period, a documented approach referencing cost information that closely matched confidential joint venture figures, and a corroborating witness account from a subcontractor willing to give a formal statement. Taken together, this evidence went well beyond suspicion and provided a solid evidential foundation for the breach of contract and confidentiality claims the client’s solicitors were preparing.
Outcome
The evidence report was disclosed as part of pre-action correspondence, and the strength of the documented findings — particularly the cooperating subcontractor’s witness statement — brought the former partner to the negotiating table rapidly. The matter settled before formal proceedings were issued, with the former partner agreeing to withdraw from the competing tender process and pay a contribution toward the client’s costs.
Lessons for Other Businesses
Litigation support work demands a different mindset to a standard workplace investigation: every piece of evidence has to be gathered and documented as though it will one day be tested in cross-examination, because it very well might be. Public records — planning applications, Companies House filings, professional networking profiles — are consistently underused sources of investigative gold in commercial disputes. Businesses anticipating litigation should involve investigators and solicitors together from the earliest possible stage, rather than gathering evidence informally first and trying to formalise it later.
Investigator’s Reflection
The speed of the settlement in this case did not surprise me, but it is worth explaining why. Once opposing solicitors see a well-documented, methodologically sound evidence package — particularly one including a cooperating witness prepared to give a formal statement — the commercial calculation around fighting versus settling shifts quickly. Weak or informally gathered evidence invites a fight, because there is something to contest; strong, properly evidenced material tends to shorten disputes rather than prolong them. It is one of the more satisfying aspects of this kind of work: good investigation does not just support litigation, it very often helps a client avoid the worst of it.
