In Spain if they were new foundations the investigation tests (number and kind) are prescribed by the code.
On piles the number of tests is usually relatively small since costly. I recently read about the foundations of the tallest skyscraper in Dubai and was no exception. I must also say that the article even if quite reasonable in proving a safety factor for the piles didn't sound particularly outstanding given the kind of work at hand (one finds the authors equating settlements by brute force approach of imagining Young's moduluses for the soils at the bottom; this way, everyone can).
Staticians are wonderful in stating likelihood of behaviour even from short runs of tests; other thing is that anyone is wanting to believe that ..., you know, there are two kind of lies...