HireRight is a global family of background screening companies. Its parent holding company is based in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on ...

Acquisitions and mergers

Powerchex

On June 23, 2010, HireRight announced that it had acquired Powerchex, a UK-based

pre-employment screening A background check is a process a person or company uses to verify that an individual is who they claim to be, and this provides an opportunity to check and confirm the validity of someone's criminal record, education, employment history, and oth ...

company specialising in the financial services sector in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

. Powerchex was a full member of the UK chapter of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners or NAPBS, and was started by

Alexandra Kelly Alexandra Filia Kelly is the founder and former managing director of UK pre-employment screening company, Powerchex, and formerly the MD of HireRight's background screening operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Alexandra was b ...

in 2005 who is the former

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

and owner of the company. In October 2010, Powerchex was rebranded as HireRight. Both Powerchex and Kroll Background Screening (below) are now fully owned subsidiaries of HireRight.

Powerchex research

Every year Powerchex commissioned the Shell Technology and Enterprise Programme to conduct

market research Market research is an organized effort to gather information about target markets and customers: know about them, starting with who they are. It is an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness. Mark ...

into trends in applicant fraud. 2007 research discovered that almost 90% of undisclosed criminal records are found on

temporary employee Temporary work or temporary employment (also called gigs) refers to an employment situation where the working arrangement is limited to a certain period of time based on the needs of the employing organization. Temporary employees are sometimes ...

CVs. In 2008 research, Powerchex found that 43% of applicants from the UK’s lowest ranking universities had some form of major embellishment hidden on their application, compared to just 14% of applicants from the top-twenty rated schools. It also found that maths and science graduates are more honest than arts graduates, who have a particularly high rate of major embellishment. The findings were published in the national press including the

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

, and

BBC News Online BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the U ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

reported on 2009 research funded by Powerchex that found a 29% increase of CV misinformation following the 2008 recession.

Kroll

On August 3, 2010, HireRight then-parent company

Altegrity Risk International Altegrity Risk International (ARI) was a New York City-based global risk consulting and information services company. A subsidiary of Altegrity, Inc. of Falls Church, VA, ARI provided investigations, business intelligence, forensic accounting, c ...

announced it had completed the acquisition of

Kroll Inc. Kroll is an American corporate investigation and risk consulting firm established in 1972 and based in New York City. In 2018, Kroll was acquired by Duff & Phelps. In 2021, Duff & Phelps decided to rebrand itself as Kroll, a process it comple ...

from

Marsh & McLennan Companies Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., doing business as Marsh McLennan, is a global professional services firm, headquartered in New York City with businesses in insurance brokerage, risk management, reinsurance services, talent management, investme ...

in an all-cash transaction valued at US$1.13 billion. In October 2010, Kroll Background Worldwide was rebranded as HireRight. On March 13, 2018, it was reported that

Duff & Phelps Kroll, LLC, formerly Duff & Phelps LLC, is an American multinational financial consultancy firm based in New York City. It was founded as Duff & Phelps in 1932 by William Duff and George Phelps. Since then, the firm has added more than 30 comp ...

Corp. would buy Kroll, Inc. (which did not include background screening portion of the former Kroll business that had been rebranded with HireRight brands). On June 4, 2018, the transaction was completed.

General Information Services

On Friday, May 25, 2018, HireRight and General Information Services (GIS) announced their intent and agreement to a merger. The companies announced the closing of the merger on July 12, 2018. The resulting combined group is the largest provider of background screening services in the United States. Following the merger, HireRight rebranded, with both HireRight and GIS using the new branding.

J-Screen and PeopleCheck

On October 12, 2019, HireRight announced the acquisition of J-Screen in Japan and PeopleCheck in Australia.

Legal issues with service

HireRight was the subject of a number of class-action and

Fair Credit Reporting Act The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 ''et seq'', is U.S. Federal Government legislation enacted to promote the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of consumer information contained in the files of consumer reporting agencies. It ...

(FCRA) lawsuits. In 2011 the company paid $28 million to plaintiffs who accused HireRight of failing to provide copies of reports to job applicants and failing to resolve disputes. And on August 8, 2012, the US Department of Justice announced HireRight settled charges of violating the FCRA for $2.6M. Companies that use background check services must follow FCRA procedures or face class-action liability with millions of dollars in exposure. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation into hiring practices in the trucking industry, class-action lawsuits were brought against trucking companies over how they use HireRight. HireRight customer U.S. Xpress settled in 2013 for $2.75M, and Swift in 2014 for $4.4M over their failure to disclose hiring practices.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.hireright.com/ Companies based in Irvine, California American companies established in 1995 Business services companies established in 1995 Business services companies of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange 2021 initial public offerings