Dataharvest 2024 - the European Investigative Journalism Conference

When it comes to financial investigations into multinationals, a journalist’s first point of entry tends to be stock market filings, in which firms detail their accounts and activities. But where can you start when the company on your radar is private? Where to look when it actually left the stock market, precisely to keep out of the limelight? Unless you’re lucky enough to have a leak, it can be a tricky business. That’s the dilema Investigate Europe faced when digging into the affairs of Perenco, Europe’s largest independent oil producer.

As part of its #perencofiles project, Investigate Europe and its media partners started the first large scale investigation about this secretive oil behemoth, suspected of corruption and environmental damage. Faced with Perenco’s complete secrecy and complex corporate structures, we had to use a variety of sources and tools to find leads, data and information. In this session, we will share some of the sources and approaches we used during our investigation. We will explain which databased can give you access to a trove of litigation documents; what registries to use; how to use information on companies' business partners to learn more about their joint venture and which regulatory institutions or watchdogs linked to the business area of the group you investigate you should learn about. We also hope to exchange with the audience and learn about other useful databases, sources and/or methods people have used when investigating unlisted companies.