Option 2: The Shadow Inquiry

You lowered the blinds, kept machines running, and whispered your probe into NDAs. For 48 hours the hush feels safe: containers leave, stock ticks up, and activist channels scrape for new material but find only silence. Legal counsel, however, reminds executives that confidentiality buys time, never absolution.

Day thirty tells a different story. A leaked email detonates the calm. Two flagship retailers freeze €6 million in orders, legal fees triple, and an ESG downgrade adds 40 bps to every future loan. Compliance staff abandon solvent‑testing prep to feed subpoena machines, losing three weeks of lab time just as Europe tightens chemical filters. The trucks still move, but each invoice drags a shadow: if you hid once, what else waits in the dark? Regulators sharpen their pens; buyers widen their audit checklists; and the silent approach now echoes with costly questions.

When the investigation eventually confirms child labour without visible remediation, international boycotts follow. The secrecy quiets the moment, yet the absence of transparency leaves a vacuum that will shape future debates over sourcing and substance.