FairerSmith believes that thorough checking of employees could be a positive preventive measure, but agrees it is often difficult. “We agreed not to prosecute if he would sign affidavits that he had passed patented information.” Argen then went to the competitors and quietly arranged that they withdraw from the market or be taken over, rather than go to court for breaking international patent laws. “The fool had defrauded the company for $150,000, a criminal offense,” Mr. “I told them to go home, that we weren't interested primarily in arresting this guy, but to stop the competition.” Argen sent a team to examine the records and, after months of sifting through agendas, telephone messages and expense accounts, pieced bits together. The Americans sent a planeload of lawyers, accountants, you name it, over here,” Mr. In addition, as managing director of the AmeriCan company's German subsidiary, he was pricing the American products 14 percent above the competitors'. His,Payoff was a Liechtenstein company with sole distribution rights for the competitors’ products. For instance, an American manufacturer had acquired a West German subsidiary and put its own man in charge over the head of the long‐time managing director, a German national.ĭisgruntled, the German passed information on the American company's products to competitors in France and Spain for several years. The American clients he does represent operate abroad.
It now employs Spanish, Italian, German, English, French and New Zealand nationals. “He got the business organized and expanded the commercial side,” Mr. Fairer‐Smith met Roger Boswarva, an Australian management consultant, now a director of the firm. Fairer‐Smith estimates, in‐house fraud and industrial espionage can cost business in England $900 million a year. They eventually installed a security system for the client's home and office. In addition crew members were smuggling liquor and cigarettes to the company's discredit. The scheme cost the shipper $500,000 year, Mr. They discovered that the captain and the engineer, in collusion, were selling the parts on the black market, while claiming that they had been used. FairerSmith to find out why he was losing spare parts carried to repair tankers en route when necessary. “I met someone in the shipping business with major security problems,” he recalled. Fairer‐Smith, a 39‐year‐old Eng‘ lishman who grew up in Rhodesia and returned to London in 1967 after 10 rears in the colonial intelligence set:vim said, “lt would be better public relations if i said I had planned this, but Argen was born at a cocktail party. Has Argen ever failed to save a vulnerable client? No, he replied, no client has ever been killed, and “that's the true test of effectiveness in this business.” And you're dead, you can't complain,” he added. “If you put on six bodyguards, 12 can attack. “You can minimize risks by proper security. “There is real danger that the [worldwide terroristi attacks will become more frequent in the futtu'e.” the United States's Central Intelligence Agency concluded earlier this month. Fairer‐Smith, a cautious man, is glum about the work etimate after such recent events as the hijacking of Japanese and West German aircraft by the so‐called “Red Army” and sympathizers of West Germany's Baader‐Meinhof Gang of anarchists the terrorist murder of Jilrgen Ponto, chairman of the Dresdner Bank of West Germany, and the kidnapping and murder of Hanns‐Martin Schleyer, president of the Wesk German Confederatiori of Employers. “Or we might create a pretext and approach several compa° ides in a way that lets us see what products are, or look at their finances,” he said. When secrets are leaking from a corporation, Argen might have a man infiltrate a competitor. “This isn't a raincoat operation,” he added, using the trade term for a private investigator who handles such matters as divorce cases and other idual work. We try to identify and solve the problem in the quietest way rather than arresting and prosecuting people,” he said, cautiously, while declining to be specifabout actual methods or clients. Fairer‐Smith says, with the police only when absolutely necessary.
Most clients are large international corporations in manufacturing, retailing and shipping-some 30 percent of them American with operations abroad -but the client roster includes a prominent London physician and Continental casinos.Īll prefer discretion and anonymity, and Argen works behind the scenes, shunning the limelight even of court cases, “liaising,” as Mr.
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