Semantic search in E-Discovery: research on the application of text mining and information retrieval for fact finding in regulatory investigations

For forensic accountants and lawyers, E-discovery is essential to support findings in order to prosecute organizations that are in violation with US, EU or national regulations. For instance, the EU aims to reduce all forms of corruption at every level, in all EU countries and institutions and even outside the EU. It also aims to prevent fraud by setting up EU anti fraud offices and actively investigates and prosecutes violations of competition regulations. This position paper proposes to address the application of intelligent language processing to the field of e- discovery to improve the quality of review and discovery. The focus will be on semantic search, combining data-driven search technology with explicit structured knowledge through the extraction of aspects, topics, entities, events and relationships from unstructured information based on email messages and postings on discussion forum.