About Us

Periplus Research is a London-based strategic intelligence and disputes advisory firm for frontier and emerging economies, principally in infrastructure, energy, and resources. It works in the Track II tradition, on a network-based model of human-source collection and assessment. The work runs in three areas: political and regulatory, transaction and counterparty, and enforcement and recovery intelligence. Through local networks across Africa, the Middle East, and South, Central, and Southeast Asia, the firm establishes what the formal record cannot show: how a decision will actually be made, and whether a counterparty will perform when agreements are tested. In contentious matters, commercial and investor-State alike, Periplus reconstructs the conduct of parties and establishes whether an award can be collected. The method is conversation, the approach mosaic. The work rests on several thousand in-country interlocutors spanning hundreds of native languages and dialects, in relationships built over years and held in trust. Each speaks within their own networks to sources no outside party can reach. The fragments are assembled into an independent line of sight for boards, investment committees, and legal teams. The same capability has supported peace processes and matters bearing on boundary and treaty disputes. The firm’s networks span 85 jurisdictions, from provincial administrations, commercial circles, and regulators through to ministries and presidencies. Periplus’s reach runs deepest in Africa, where the networks have been applied in all but two of the continent’s 54 countries. Hundreds of engagements over fifteen years—from subsea cable transit rights and mining portfolio monitoring to cross-border concession liability—predate the firm itself. The formal record—filings, registries, data rooms, financial models—shows what is legible. The decisive facts often sit outside it: unwritten understandings, intent, and how power actually runs. The work is carried out under strict confidentiality and compliance frameworks; where instructed through a client's legal team, it is structured to support litigation privilege.