Question 1

What is a due diligence report?

Accepted Answer

A due diligence report is a written assessment of a counterparty prepared before you commit to a transaction. It verifies that the company or person exists as claimed, establishes who controls them, screens them against sanctions and politically exposed person lists, checks for offshore and litigation exposure, and states what the findings mean for your decision. A Scrutinex report also lists every source consulted and the date it was checked.

Question 2

How much does a due diligence report cost?

Accepted Answer

Scrutinex reports cost between $29 and $129. An Entity Report or Individual Report is $29 for the standard automated-and-flagged tier or $79 for a full analyst-reviewed report. A Combined Report covering both a person and a company, with a cross-reference between them, is $49 standard or $129 full. There is no contract, no subscription and no minimum order.

Question 3

How do I verify a business partner in another country?

Accepted Answer

Start with three data points: the legal name, the jurisdiction of registration and the registration number. With those you can check the corporate registry directly. Then screen the entity and its named officers against the OFAC, UN Security Council and EU sanctions lists, check the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database for offshore links, and search local-language media. Scrutinex performs all of these in one Entity Report if you would rather not assemble them yourself.

Question 4

What is a KYB check?

Accepted Answer

KYB stands for Know Your Business. It is the entity equivalent of KYC: confirming a company's legal existence and registration status, identifying its directors and beneficial owners, and screening those parties against sanctions and PEP lists. KYB platforms are usually sold to regulated firms onboarding many customers. If you need to verify one counterparty once, a single company verification report covers the same ground without a subscription.

Question 5

Which sanctions lists do you screen against?

Accepted Answer

Every report screens against the OFAC Specially Designated Nationals list and OFAC consolidated non-SDN lists (United States), the UN Security Council Consolidated List, and the EU Consolidated List of persons, groups and entities subject to financial sanctions. We screen all three on every report because designations differ between them: a party absent from one list is regularly present on another.

Question 6

Can I use this report to screen a job candidate or a tenant?

Accepted Answer

No. Scrutinex reports are commercial due diligence products, not consumer reports under the US Fair Credit Reporting Act or equivalent legislation elsewhere. They contain no criminal records and no credit data, and Scrutinex is not a consumer reporting agency. They may not be used for employment, tenancy, credit or insurance decisions. We ask your purpose at intake and decline orders in those categories.

Question 7

How long does a report take?

Accepted Answer

Standard reports are delivered in 2 business days and Full analyst-reviewed reports in 5 business days. Jurisdictions with paper-only or fee-gated registries can take longer, and we tell you before starting rather than after.

Question 8

What information do you need from me to start?

Accepted Answer

The subject's full legal name plus at least one hard identifier. For a company that means a registration number and the jurisdiction of incorporation. For a person it means a date of birth or a nationality. Without an identifier, sanctions screening returns name matches rather than a verified subject, so we require one before submission. You also tell us the purpose of the report so the recommendations address your actual decision.

Question 9

Will the subject know I ordered a report?

Accepted Answer

No. Orders are confidential. We do not contact the subject of a report and we do not disclose that a report has been ordered. The one exception is reference verification on a Full Individual Report, where we call referees you have supplied, which necessarily involves contacting those named individuals.

Question 10

What if you find nothing?

Accepted Answer

A clean report is a result. It tells you the entity is registered and active, that its officers are identifiable, and that no sanctions, PEP, offshore or adverse media exposure was found in the sources listed, as at the dates shown. That is a documented basis for proceeding, and it is worth having in the file if the arrangement is ever reviewed.

Question 11

Is a due diligence report useful for a government contract or an MOU?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and the record that you performed diligence matters as much as the finding. For public-sector work we verify the counterparty entity, screen named officials against PEP and sanctions lists, and note the authority-to-sign question explicitly. A PEP match in government work is an indicator to assess, not automatically a red flag, and the report says which one it is.

Question 12

Do you cover countries outside the United States and Europe?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Scrutinex is built for global work, including jurisdictions where registry data is thin or not digitised. Where a record does not exist or is not public, the report says so explicitly and names the source we checked and the date. We would rather record a documented gap than imply coverage we do not have.

Questions about due diligence reports