Among the sectors in which the work of private investigators is more often requested, company investigations stand out.

The private investigator, or detective, is a key figure to solve many cases, and his services are requested in many sectors, from family life to work. Company investigations, in particular, are becoming more and more popular: many companies, indeed, decide to ask for the help of the private investigator agencies to keep under control those situations that are not very clear and those employees that do not seem to be very reliable.

Industrial counterespionage, suspicious absences, company betrayals of employees … these and other cases are dealt with by private investigators, who are becoming more and more necessary for many companies. In Italy the work of investigation agencies is ruled by Ministerial Decree No. 269 of December 1, 2010, which has been added to the dispositions of article 134 T.U.L.P.S. Thanks to this decree, and although there is not any register for this type of job, the activity of private investigators is now considered as a profession of the truest type, which can be compared to the job of any other type of professionals.

When an agency decides to ask for the help of an investigation agency, it is asking for the services of a given category of professionals, who have specific knowledge, also as far as law is concerned, and abilities, and who follow a given procedure to help those companies that for any reason happen to have to solve a problem that can be more or less thorny.

Let’s look deeper into the matter and try to understand in which cases the work of a private detective can be useful, or necessary, for a company. An investigative agency might be contacted by a company that wants to protect itself against plagiarism of brands or patents or against industrial espionage and asks for a service of counterespionage. Moreover, the work of a private detective might be necessary to check the credentials of a person that has just been hired or that is going to become part of the company, especially if they are going to have a very important or responsibility role. Another case when the help of a detective is useful is when employees are suspected of being betraying their company, for example because they are very often absent from work as they are working for a competitor. In this case, an exaggerated number of absences might certainly arouse suspicion and move an employer to ask for the intervention of a detective. A suspicious absenteeism might also be a sign for something else: employees that do not go to work for long periods or for short but repeated periods of time might hide a second job, but more simply they might be perfect idlers, who use their sick leave to stay at home or to go on holiday. Also in this case the detective might unmask the cheating employee.

The ability and experience of private detectives is necessary, in these and in other cases, to work in an efficacious way and above all within the law: investigators, indeed, are professionals that know the law and do their job respecting it.