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Due Diligence Report — Canadian Counterparties

Short answer

A due diligence report on a Canadian counterparty maps the corporate structure, identifies the people behind it, and surfaces litigation, liens, insolvency history, regulatory enforcement, sanctions exposure, and adverse media. Sleuthify assembles it from registries and court records with every finding cited, so it can be attached to a memo or a credit file.

Draws on 13 record sources, each named below with the statutory basis we rely on. See the list.

Run a free scanRecords Report $249 · Typically 20 minutes, guaranteed under 4 hours

The entity you were given is often not the entity that matters

A trading name is not a legal entity. The company on the letterhead may be a numbered holdco with no assets, while the operating business sits in a sibling entity and the property sits in a third. Diligence that stops at the name on the contract misses this routinely. The first job is to establish what the legal entity actually is, what its status is, and what else the same people control.

Signals that reliably predict trouble

Repeat incorporation and dissolution by the same directors. Annual returns in default. A registered office that is a mail drop shared with dozens of entities. PPSA registrations from lenders of last resort. Construction liens clustered in one period. Directors who appear in prior insolvencies. None of these is dispositive alone, and together they are a pattern that experienced credit and legal teams recognise immediately — so the report presents them as a pattern rather than a list.

Sanctions and PEP screening is cheap and non-optional

Government sanctions lists are free, fast to query, and a hit is material enough to end a transaction. There is no reason not to run them on every counterparty and every principal. We check the Consolidated Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List alongside the UN, US OFAC, EU, and UK regimes, and we screen name variants rather than exact strings, because sanctions evasion via transliteration is the norm.

What you receive

In the report

  • Legal entity identification and current registry standing
  • Full corporate structure, including affiliated and predecessor entities
  • Directors, officers, and where published, shareholders
  • Litigation history for the entity and its principals
  • Liens, PPSA registrations, and registered judgments
  • Insolvency and bankruptcy history, including prior entities of the same directors
  • Securities filings and regulatory enforcement
  • Sanctions and politically-exposed-person screening with variant matching
  • Adverse media, with each item sourced and dated
  • A risk summary that states what we found and what we could not rule out

Honest limits

What due diligence report canada will not tell you

Every item here is a structural limit of the Canadian record, not a paywall. Anyone promising you these is either misrepresenting what they have or describing something unlawful.

  • Private Canadian companies do not publish financial statements
  • Beneficial ownership is frequently not disclosed in any registry
  • Ontario and Alberta court coverage is incomplete without manual retrieval
  • This is not a credit report and contains no credit score

13 connectors

Sources this search queries

Each source carries the paragraph of the Regulations Specifying Publicly Available Information that permits collecting from it without the subject's consent.

Every source we operate, with fees and coverage

Figures

Numbers worth quoting

Each figure carries its source and the date it was current.
MeasureValueSourceAs of
Sanctions regimes screened per counterparty check5+Global Affairs Canada, UN, OFAC, EU, UK HMT2026
Registry fees and coverage change. Figures are stated as of the date shown, not as a standing guarantee.

Questions

due diligence report canada — common questions

What should due diligence on a Canadian company include?

At minimum: confirm the legal entity and its registry standing, identify directors and officers, check litigation and judgment history, run PPSA and lien searches, check insolvency history for both the entity and its principals, screen against sanctions and PEP lists, and search adverse media. For a material transaction, add corporate structure mapping across provinces and a review of any securities filings.

How do I check if a Canadian company is legitimate?

Search the federal and relevant provincial corporate registry for the exact legal name, not the trading name. Confirm the status is active and annual returns are current. Check when it was incorporated — a company claiming twenty years of experience but incorporated last year is a problem. Then check whether the directors have prior dissolved entities or insolvencies, and whether the registered office is a real place of business or a shared mail drop.

Can I get a Canadian company's financial statements?

Only if it is a reporting issuer, in which case they are on SEDAR+ for free. Private Canadian companies have no public filing obligation for financials. You can build a partial financial picture from public records — registered security interests indicate borrowing, liens and judgments indicate non-payment, property holdings indicate capital — but the statements themselves are not obtainable without the company's cooperation.

Is a due diligence report the same as a credit report?

No. A credit report comes from a registered consumer reporting agency, contains a score derived from tradeline data, and requires consent for a permitted purpose. A due diligence report is built from public records and contains no score and no tradeline data. They answer different questions and, for a business counterparty, most teams want both.

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By province

What this search costs and concludes depends on the jurisdiction.

All provinces and territories

Next step

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We tell you how many records match, where they are, and whether a full report is worth buying. No credit card.
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Due Diligence Report Canada | Sleuthify