Your Company’s Name Was Stolen. Now You’re the Defendant, Published in The Legal Intelligencer

In an article published on September 28 in The Legal Intelligencer, Segal McCambridge Shareholder Justin R Waytowich examines the growing threat of corporate identity theft against a backdrop of new research released September 22 by CSC: 90% of surveyed companies say AI is increasing impersonation and other online threats to their brands, and more than half expect those threats to rise significantly during the next three years. The article outlines how construction companies and businesses that rely on vendor documentation can protect their reputation, address fraudulent agreements, and build a defensible record when they are named in litigation connected to work they never performed.

“The innocent company must prove a negative, and invalidate the underlying documentation, establish their lack of presence on the jobsite, lack of relationship with the entity that actually performed the work, lack of authority by the bad actor to bind the company to a contract, and the innocent company’s overall lack of involvement with the project.” Justin Waytowich writes. “Practically, this entails that the company’s initial response to any lawsuit would be to plead all applicable defenses such as fraud and corporate identity theft.”

The September 22 CSC research reinforces the urgency of this issue: as AI makes brand impersonation easier to scale, businesses need safeguards that extend beyond traditional cybersecurity controls. Waytowich explains that a prompt, coordinated response should pair internal investigation and security improvements with early litigation strategy, including notice to the parties, a request for voluntary discontinuance where evidence supports fraud, and targeted discovery. The analysis also identifies key proof: corporate project records, the company’s established scope of work, the impersonator’s lack of authority or affiliation, communications with the bad actor, and inconsistencies in contracts, insurance certificates, invoices, email addresses, phone numbers, and payment records.

“Identity theft now encompasses more than just stealing personal information,” Waytowich writes. “In an increasingly alarming trend nationwide, legitimate companies are falling victim to ‘corporate identity theft’ through fraudulent use of their name, contracts, invoices, certificates, or vendor information.” 

Read the article in full, click here (subscriber-based).