WCBJ
WESTCHESTER COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL
YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
April 9, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 15
High-tech data investigator sets up shop in Purchase BY PATRICK GALLAGHER pgallagher@westfairinc.com
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ith Facebook Inc. preparing for what could be the largest Internet IPO in history, the last thing founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg needed was a lawsuit from a man claiming to own 50 percent of the company. Attorneys for Zuckerberg filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on March 27, calling Paul Ceglia’s claims “fraudulent” and presenting
evidence that the supposed contract between Ceglia and Zuckerberg was a fake. News coverage of the developments largely omitted, however, that electronic data analysis and recovery firm Stroz Friedberg L.L.C. – which recently opened a new office at 3 Manhattanville Road in the Centre at Purchase – was responsible for the findings. With an estimated 90 percent of corporate data being stored electronically on servers, hard drives, and even smart phones and tablet devices, companies are increasingly calling on Stroz Friedberg for its
Westchester unemployment rises Unemployment in Westchester County in February was unchanged from January at 7.4 percent, according to data released April 3 by the state Labor Department. The rate was up, however, from 7.3 percent in February 2011. The number of unemployed Westchester residents increased slightly over the past year, but Labor Department analyst John Nelson said Westchester still ranks among the strongest labor markets in the state. “I think overall you’re still seeing some good economic expansion and good overall job expansion in this region,” he said, adding that “one month’s data
does not make a trend.” Nelson said he expects the employment situation in the lower Hudson Valley to improve as the year goes on. The private sector added 4,800 jobs over the past year in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, representing annual growth of 1.1 percent. The strongest industries included financial services, professional and business services, and education and health services, which grew by 4 percent, 6.4 percent, and 2.7 percent, respectively. Those gains were offset by cuts in construction, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and government.
investigative expertise. “At the core, we’re an investigative shop. Our DNA is investigations in the technology realm,” said Executive Managing Director John F. Curran. Founded in 2001, Stroz Friedberg is headquartered in New York City and works in the areas of digital forensics, business intelligence and investigations, cybercrime and data breach response, security risk consulting, and electronic discovery. Stroz Friedberg, in other words, is capable of gathering, sorting through, analyzing and packaging a company’s electronic data, with past clients including Google Inc., American Express Co., and the U.S. Justice Department. The bulk of the company’s electronic discovery unit will be based at its new, 8,000-square-foot office in Purchase, where Stroz Friedberg recently signed a five-year lease. The unit had been based in Westport, Conn., since the March 2008 acquisition of the e-discovery Investigator, page 6
Illustration by John Ashton Golden
Mortgage blues • 2 Morgan, Citi may look to speed up joint buyout BY JANICE KIRKEL jkirkel@westfairinc.com
Bias in the workplace
Joseph Saccomano, a managing partner with Jackson Lewis, was a panelist at a roundtable hosted by Westfair Communications Inc. • 13
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itigroup may be looking to exit the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney joint venture sooner rather than later. Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, based in Purchase, is the wealth management joint venture of Citigroup and Morgan
Stanley. Morgan owns 51 percent, Citigroup 49 percent. As of May 31, Morgan Stanley will have an option to buy 14 percent more from Citigroup. It has options through May 2014 to buy the remainder in two more steps. Citigroup’s stake was worth as much as $10.3 billion as of Dec. 31. Analysts say though, there’s a Morgan, page 6