Heywood Murder Thrusts Employer Hakluyt Into Limelight

Hakluyt & Co., the corporate investigations firm that hired British businessman Neil Heywood as a consultant in China, has been thrust by his death into a place it promises clients it will never be: the limelight.

“We guarantee complete confidentiality,” Hakluyt director Christopher James told Enron Corp.’s then Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling in 2001, according to an e-mail exchange that was released during a U.S. investigation into the bankrupt energy company. Hakluyt, James wrote, “places an unparalleled private intelligence network at the personal disposal of senior commercial figures.”