Melissa Sawyer, S&C’s Global Head of M&A, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the U.S. Department of Justice’s new safe harbor policy that calls for an acquirer to disclose any potential wrongdoing of a target company within six months of the closing date of an M&A deal.
Melissa said that while it is rare to uncover the types of issues that require reporting before a deal closes, it will be increasingly important for buyers and sellers to implement pre-closing compliance reviews.
“I think we could see efforts to expedite the compliance integration,” said Melissa, noting that doing so will allow buyers to put their “own compliance practices to work on the target business more quickly than they might otherwise have done.”
Read “DOJ Policy on M&A to Encourage Extra Scrutiny of Target Companies’ Compliance.”