M&A’ Red Flags for the United States #4

In times of increasingly harsh measures taken by the U.S.Department of Justice or the SEC (see the recent settlement re Daimler AG – the complaint can be retrieved in this blog April 9, 2010 at http://www.usa-recht.de/2010/04/sec-klage-gegen-daimler/ against violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), it is a must in a purchaser’s pre-acquisition due diligence that questions get asked such as “Does the target have an FCPA policy, and can it produce evidence of that policy being enforced, with FCPA training?” or “How robust are the target’s accounting and compliance systems?“ or “How frequently must the target interact with foreign regulators to obtain licenser, or obtain governmental inspections?”