Nick Day

Nick Day is Chief Executive Officer of Diligence: A former officer of Britain's Security Service (MI5) Day is a founding partner of Diligence. Other sources say it was founded by William Webster, the only man to head both the CIA and the FBI. Following his government service, Day worked as a senior investigator for the Maxima Group, a leading European fraud investigations firm. According to the Independent Day joined the Marines at the age of 18 before becoming an officer in the Special Boat Service, the maritime equivalent of the SAS. Following time in Iraq, Northern Ireland and Bosnia (where he gathered intelligence), he became a spy, joining MI5 and specialising in Middle Eastern terrorist groups. He set up Diligence with ex-CIA agent Mike Baker in 2000. The Independent also stated:

"In association with Kuwaiti partner the Al-Mal Investment Company, the firm works for blue chips, media agencies and non-governmental organisations either already in Iraq or about to move in. Services include vetting local employees and partners, due diligence on potential investments, daily intelligence briefs, protecting compounds and payrolls, and providing bodyguards. Fees are based on the level of risk involved."

Diligence has further links to the US via the heavyweight Republican lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers (BGR) which has invested in the business, Diligence also works in association with New Bridge Strategies, a US firm with links to BGR that was set up to help companies secure Iraqi contracts. Clients are understood to include the American governmental agency USAID and a number of companies associated with Halliburton. For Day "We will go where there's a market for our services. People just feel uncomfortable in emerging markets."

Business Week] reported how KPMG the accounting giant was infiltrated by Diligence in 2005. Barbour Griffith & Rogers, one of the most formidable lobbying firms in Washington, represented a Russian conglomerate whose archrival, IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd., was being audited by KPMG's Bermuda office. Day posed as an MI5 agent and got an accountant to drop off inside information. Business Week adds this (note the mention of Alfa):

"From the start, Diligence's goal was clear, if far from simple: Infiltrate KPMG to obtain advance information about the audit of IPOC, an investment fund based in Bermuda. Russian conglomerate Alfa Group Consortium hired Barbour Griffith & Rogers through a subsidiary, and the lobbying firm in turn hired Diligence. Alfa is dueling with IPOC for a large stake in the Russian telecom company MegaFon. "We have a good chance of success on this project," Day wrote in an internal Diligence memo, referring to the Bermuda espionage effort. The memo, which BusinessWeek reviewed, added: "We are doing it in a way which gives plausible deniability, and therefore virtually no chance of discovery." Similar Diligence operations, the memo noted, had been successful before."

Richard Burt of Diligence's Advisory board is also Alfa Bank’s Senior Advisory Board in Moscow and as International Director of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers (who share Diligence's offices). On IPOC itself: one reader response in Businessweek states: "Try "googling" this: "IPOC" + "Leonid Reiman" + "Money Laundering". Nearly 300 hits."

In 2005, KPMG Financial Advisory Services sued Diligence for fraud and unjust enrichment in U.S. District Court in Washington. On June 20, 2006, the case settled. Diligence paid KPMG $1.7 million, according to Business Week IPOC sued both Diligence and Barbour Griffith & Rogers in the same District Court, alleging civil conspiracy, unjust enrichment, and other misdeeds. That case is pending.

Libya

As head of Diligence, Day has been involved in helping British firms to enter Libya. Following the controversy over the release of Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, Day told The Times:

“It was an open secret on the ground there that other oil firms were not encountering the same difficulties that BP had ... because the issue of al-Megrahi was unresolved.

“Any government has the overwhelming priority of ensuring the economic wellbeing of the country, protecting national security and furthering bilateral relations. This is clearly what Britain was doing in this case — and there is nothing wrong with it. The problem is that governments do not always feel able to tell people the whole truth.”