Agents, fixers, intermediaries: vetting the third party between you and the deal.
Cross-border transactions almost always go through someone — an agent, a representative, a fixer. The intermediary is often where the real integrity-risk signals first appear, and almost always where buyers and counterparties stop looking. A framework for vetting the middle of the chain.
Counterparty due diligence has a quiet default: focus on the named party. Look at the company you are buying from, partnering with, or investing in. Verify what you can. Ask questions where you can't.
The frame is correct as far as it goes. It also misses the place where, in our work, integrity signals most often surface first — the intermediary who sits between you and the named party.
Why the middle of the chain carries the signal
The intermediary's job is to move the deal forward. That is the explicit role, and a perfectly legitimate one. The economic incentives that come with that role — success-based fees, opaque payment structures, multi-deal relationships — are also exactly the structures that historically have hosted the bulk of corruption and integrity-risk issues in international transactions.
You don't have to assume bad faith to acknowledge the structural reality. The intermediary's incentives are not identical to yours. The diligence you would do on a direct counterparty needs to be done — in a slightly different shape — on the intermediary too.
A short framework
Document checks
- What is the intermediary's legal form? Where is it registered?
- Who are its beneficial owners?
- What is the engagement contract — between them and you, and between them and the counterparty?
- How is their fee structured? Success-based, retainer, hybrid?
- Where are payments routed to and from?
Reputational checks
- What does an open-source search return? Press, regulatory mentions, prior litigation?
- Are they on, or adjacent to, sanctions or politically exposed person (PEP) lists?
- Have prior counterparties spoken about them publicly? Privately, if you can ask?
- Do they appear in adverse media coverage in any jurisdiction they operate in?
Behavioural checks
- Do they accept independent oversight of the deal terms?
- Do they push for unusual payment routings, jurisdictions, or structures?
- Do they discourage direct contact between the principal parties?
- Do they bring urgency that doesn't have a clear external anchor?
None of these checks is exotic. All of them are best done before the intermediary becomes embedded in the deal, while you still have the option to restructure the relationship.
The common mistakes
- Treating the introducer's endorsement as the diligence. The person who introduced the intermediary is not the same as the intermediary themselves.
- Assuming a long track record equals integrity. An intermediary who has done many deals has had many opportunities. The volume is not the signal.
- Skipping the engagement contract. The terms on which you engage the intermediary are themselves a diligence document. Vague terms are a tell.
- Letting the payment route migrate. A request to route the deal proceeds through a different jurisdiction "for efficiency" is a moment to slow down.
When an intermediary is part of the chain, we treat them as a counterparty in their own right — entity verification, beneficial-ownership map, adverse media, sanctions and PEP screening, contract-terms review, and a behavioural section that documents the pattern of how they have engaged in the deal so far. The output is a brief that lets you make a real decision about whether the deal can proceed as currently structured.
Restructuring rather than walking away
In many cases, the right outcome isn't to abandon the deal. It is to restructure the role of the intermediary — direct contact between principals, payment routes that match contracting parties, clearer fee documentation. A good intermediary will agree to all of this. The reaction to the request is information.
An intermediary you'd like an independent read on?
Tell us who is in the middle of the deal. We'll scope a Counterparty Brief on them — and tell you what we can verify, what we can't, and how the structure could be tightened before you commit.