Digital intelligence before you commit.
Analyst-led investigative due diligence for the professionals who carry the risk, across the UK. Before your firm takes on a claim, invests in a case, or commits to a critical decision, Extant examines what can already be found — and reports only what matters.
Start an enquiryScreening tells you what exists. Extant tells you what matters.
Automated checks can return volume: pages of matches, unweighed and unattributed. An Extant analyst starts from your objective — the specific assertions the matter rests on — and tests what can be found against it. Every finding is attributed and weighed, not listed. What the evidence does not establish is stated as plainly as what it does.
The judgment is the product.
I — The Extant Report
A scoped initial investigation against your specific objective. Structured, source-referenced findings, with a clear recommendation — and where the record warrants deeper enquiry, we say so plainly.
II — The Extant Investigation
Full-depth investigation, opened only with your approval: corroboration and evidential capture preserved in court-aware form.
Every Extant Report tests the specific assertions a matter rests on — the same discipline applies whether the decision is a claim, a tribunal defence, a financial dispute or an appointment.
Most reports support the claim. That is the point.
Extant exists for early validation, not suspicion. In most cases, the record contains no material contradiction — and that conclusion is valuable: it supports the decision to invest in the case, protects the statement of truth, and puts documented diligence on the file.
"Extant reports what the record shows. It does not allege, accuse or judge. The decision remains where it belongs — with the professional."
A record you can rely on, whichever way the case goes.
Public content can vanish overnight. An Extant report puts on your file a reliable record of exactly what was found, at the moment the decision was made.
One credibility failure can forfeit an entire claim.
England and Wales
Under section 57 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015, a finding of fundamental dishonesty in any part of a claim requires the court to dismiss all of it, including the genuine element. With QOCS protection lost, adverse costs follow, and a firm acting under a conditional fee agreement writes off everything it invested.
Northern Ireland
Section 57 does not apply, and claims are funded differently. The risk sits elsewhere: a claimant whose account is contradicted by their own public record loses the claim and the credibility that went with it, and the firm that ran it answers for that to the court, to the legal expenses insurer whose panel it sits on, and to the union or referrer who sent the client. The material that decides it is just as public in Belfast as in Birmingham.
The material that decided the case was usually there before the claim was ever pleaded.
The most expensive discovery is the late one.
When the online record reached court.
- Muyepa v MoD (2022) — social media video evidence; £2.9m claim dismissed.
- Williams-Henry v ABP (2024) — £596,704 of genuine damages forfeited under s.57.
- Shaw v Wilde (2024) — c. £1.2m forfeited; interim payments repayable.
- Iddon v Warner (2021) — open-water swimming records found online; claim dismissed entirely.
- Wye Valley NHS Trust v Murphy (2024) — claimant's own posts; immediate custodial sentence for contempt.
In every case, the material was public before the claim was ever pleaded.
- Claimant law firms — testing the assertions a claim rests on before the firm commits its work in progress, and putting vetting discipline on the file.
- Employment and tribunal matters — testing the assertions a claim or a defence rests on before the decision to defend, settle or proceed.
- Solicitors and professional advisers — one-off enquiries where a decision turns on what can be found.
- Transactions and acquisitions — checking the sellers, directors and owners behind a deal against the public record before exchange.
- Organisations — funders, employers and organisations: pre-investment review, and corporate or bespoke due diligence scoped to a defined and lawful purpose.
Lawfully sourced information only · UK GDPR compliant · ICO registered ZC208685 · Methodology statement available to clients on request.