Shield Report Methodology

Last updated: 2026-09-03 · Version 1.2 · Questions: [email protected]

This page enumerates every public-record source Shield checks per tier — and what we don't yet check. We tell you what's actually in the report so you can decide if it answers your question before paying.

Information only — not advice Shield aggregates publicly available records from official sources. Every claim in a Shield report includes a direct citation to the source record. Shield does not provide legal, financial, or investment advice. Shield does not recommend, approve, endorse, or disapprove of any sponsor, principal, deal, or investment. All interpretation is the sole responsibility of the customer. A Shield report is not a consumer report under the FCRA and may not be used for purposes covered by the FCRA.

Quick Shield — $97 (LIVE)

The entry-level Shield report. Screens one named principal from a US real-estate syndication deal against 7 core public-record sources. Manual delivery within 5 business days.

7 core sources in every report

LiveOFAC SDN — US Treasury Specially Designated Nationals list. Direct API. Sanctions, terrorism, narcotics screening.
LiveSEC EDGAR Form D — every Reg D offering the principal has sponsored. Filings since 2008.
LiveSEC IAPD — Investment Adviser Public Disclosure. RIA representative disciplinary flag + firm affiliations.
LiveSEC SALI — SEC Action Lookup (Individuals). Bars, suspensions, cease-and-desist orders since 2014.
LiveGDELT — adverse news across 50,000+ sources worldwide, last 90 days.
LiveGoogle CSE — broader web adverse news (fraud / scam / barred keywords).
LiveCourtListener RECAP — federal dockets (person-named) — free public archive of federal court filings, populated from PACER; coverage is partial — not every docket is archived. Surfaced as cited records only, with no per-record verdict or score. Identity discipline: every entry carries its docket number and filing date so you can verify it is your principal; when a name matches many possible litigants the report flags the ambiguity for your review rather than guessing. Open the cited docket before drawing conclusions.

The screening pipeline also probes additional sanctions lists, registries, and courts beyond the core seven; anything it finds appears in your report with citations. Sources marked Soon below are not queried.

What you get in the PDF

Verdict per principal: PASS / REVIEW / BLOCK / UNRESOLVED
Prior offerings: list of prior Reg D filings + RIA firm affiliations with links
Discipline history: any SEC bars/suspensions/C&Ds with case numbers and URLs
Adverse news: article list with title, source, date, URL, matched keywords
Direct citations: every claim includes source URL + retrieval date

What's NOT in Quick Shield (yet) State-level enforcement (TX/NY/WA/FL state securities regulators), federal banking regulators (FDIC / Federal Reserve / CFPB), DOJ criminal press releases, professional license verification (NMLS / state bars / CPA / RE broker), PACER federal court cases, state civil court records, bankruptcy filings. These ship with higher tiers only after our internal FCRA review clears them. No outside counsel has reviewed these data categories.

Sponsor Shield — $247 (LIVE — launched 2026-08-31)

Sponsor Shield launched 2026-08-31. Every Sponsor Shield report initiates a search of the covered floor list within 48 hours of cleared payment — the Process Guarantee in our Terms §8.5, which also provides a covered-source-match refund. Covered floor list (live as of launch): U.S. SEC EDGAR · U.S. Treasury OFAC SDN · SEC IAPD · trade.gov CSL · GDELT · Google CSE (curated domains) · CourtListener RECAP (entity-named parties).

Process Guarantee Effective Date: August 31, 2026. From this date, the §8.5 Process Guarantee (Terms of Service v3.3) applies to every Sponsor Shield purchase.

Sources on top of Quick Shield (as of August 31, 2026)

Livetrade.gov CSL — Consolidated Screening List. One query hits 5+ federal sanctions lists (OFAC CSL, BIS DPL, DDTC Debarred, more).
LiveCourtListener RECAP — federal dockets (entity-named parties)
SoonFDIC enforcement orders — federal banking enforcement (person-level prohibitions).
SoonFRB enforcement actions — Federal Reserve individual prohibitions.
SoonCFPB enforcement — consumer finance (mortgage-adjacent).
SoonDOJ Criminal Fraud Section — securities / mortgage / Ponzi prosecutions.
SoonTX SSB + NY DFS + WA DFI + FL OFR — top-4 state securities regulators.
SoonSEC Form ADV bulk — firm-level RIA data with disciplinary yes/no flags.
SoonSEC EDGAR full-text (all forms) — 10-K / 8-K / 10-Q mentions.

Structure Shield — $347 (SOON)

Same source stack as Sponsor Shield, but applied to a multi-entity deal structure (sponsor + GP + LP + special-purpose vehicles). 68 structural checks across entities. Target ship: after Sponsor Shield stabilizes.

World Shield — $497 (SOON — analyst-reviewed)

Adds paid databases (Bloomberg, LexisNexis Accurint, Dun & Bradstreet) and a human investigator who signs every report. US + UK principal coverage (Israel coverage gated on a CofaceBdi reseller agreement — see FAQ below). 5–7 day delivery. Target ship: after our internal FCRA review clears the paid-database use cases.

FAQ

Does Quick Shield include federal court cases (PACER)? Yes, person-named federal dockets — via CourtListener's RECAP, a free public archive populated from PACER filings. Coverage is partial: RECAP archives many, not all, dockets; PACER remains the complete paid system of record. The results ship with strict controls: identity disambiguation anchored to case number and filing date, records-only surfacing with no per-record verdict or score, and per-record citations. PACER itself — the federal judiciary's paid docket service — is not queried while our internal FCRA review of additional litigation paths continues. No outside counsel has reviewed this data category.

Why doesn't Quick Shield include FINRA BrokerCheck? FINRA's Terms of Use explicitly prohibit creating a database from BrokerCheck data. We don't scrape sources that prohibit it. The SEC's IAPD (which we DO use) covers similar ground — RIA representatives — under the SEC's Fair Access policy.

What if my principal has a common name? Each source uses exact-phrase name matching. When multiple individuals share the name, we surface ALL candidates and flag the ambiguity rather than guessing. You can clarify via the post-order email.

What if a source is down when my report runs? That source returns UNRESOLVED in the report. We don't guess. You see exactly which sources ran cleanly and which didn't, with the reason.

Refund policy? Refunds are governed by our Terms of Service §8.4: one-time Shield purchases carry a 14-day full-refund window from delivery. Sponsor Shield, Structure Shield, and World Shield purchases additionally carry the §8.5 Process Guarantee (covered-source-match refund, 90 days from delivery); Quick Shield is not covered by §8.5. If you order a report for a principal we cannot screen — for example, an Israeli resident principal (Israeli Registrar of Companies does not license direct commercial access to officer records; coverage is gated on a CofaceBdi reseller agreement we have not yet signed) — you get a full refund.

What if I submit an Israeli principal? Currently Shield does not have direct or reseller access to the Israeli Registrar of Companies officer records (the Israeli Privacy Protection Authority §2(5) restricts direct commercial access). If you submit an Israeli resident principal, we will notify you before running the report that the person-level officer-history check is not available, and offer you either (a) a full refund, or (b) proceeding with the report minus the officer-history source (still includes OFAC SDN, SEC EDGAR, SEC IAPD, SEC SALI, GDELT, Google CSE where the principal has US filings). Israeli coverage is planned for v2.1 via a CofaceBdi reseller agreement.

FCRA notice: Shield Reports are not consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). They may not be used for employment screening, tenant screening, credit eligibility, or any other FCRA-covered purpose. Shield Reports contain public-record data only and are provided strictly as information for the customer's own investment due-diligence.

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