Kroll Associates

"At the same time, the executives of Kroll Associates in France, an American economic intelligence company engaged by LVMH for several weeks to find any exploitable weaknesses in both Gucci and De Sole and Ford, fax the news highlights to their European management in the UK, without hiding their surprise: "We are speechless," they write. The intelligence agency wasn't informed..."

"For the first time, LVMH is calling on Kroll Associates, an American research firm specializing in economic intelligence. The mission is to uncover Racamier's secrets. However, the results are not up to par, and time is running out."

"In mid-February 1999, Pierre Godé and James Lieber, the group's attorney for sensitive affairs, met with Nicolas Waldmann in Paris, accompanied by Thomas Helsby, the head of Kroll Associates' London office. The objective of the meeting was to launch an investigation into Gucci as well as its two main leaders, Domenico De Sole and Tom Ford. A letter from Kroll, addressed to the leaders of LVMH, dated February 16th, was clear: "Your group currently holds a significant stake in a foreign company," Nicolas Waldmann wrote to Pierre Godé."

"While Bernard Arnault, as we will see, would mobilize intelligence agency Kroll Associates to reveal all the small and big secrets of his opponent, François Pinault, on the other hand, would turn to Antoine Gaudino to uncover and, if possible, make known the practices he supposed to be diabolical of the "exterminating angel.""

"In addition to the official war, there is also a secret war. While they are battling, for now in vain, on the legal front, mobilizing international lawyers, LVMH's leaders will also resort to other methods to discredit their opponent. They will again use the services of Kroll Associates, but this time on a massive scale. The goal is no longer to quickly obtain usable information to identify the weaknesses of a target and better negotiate, but to extensively, widely, and deeply gather a considerable amount of information and documents on François Pinault. Once collected and analyzed, they will be provided to LVMH's top management. This vast intelligence operation will be carried out along two lines of work. On the one hand, documentary investigation, using databases, public archives, and confidential interviews with all kinds of people, including officials and journalists, allowing them to develop analyses, memos, and seek new leads. On the other hand, operational research, essentially trash digging, called black forests (forêts noires) in the terminology used in Anglo-Saxon agencies, carried out by a third-party English company. At no point in any of the documents we have been able to consult is there any trace of clearly illegal activities, such as unauthorized wiretaps, document theft in private premises, or home invasion."