Middle East
Due Diligence and Regulatory Compliance - Middle East
A leading Wall Street Private Equity firm wished to take a majority stake in a UAE-based conglomerate. The firm approached Diligence on the advice of in-house counsel mindful of FCPA compliance. Open source research of International and National media did not reveal any issues of concern. However, upon closer inspection and through both internal resource and well placed local contacts, it became apparent that two of the leading individuals in the deal had been the subject of corruption cases that had not been featured in open source material. These facts had not been revealed to Diligence's client and after receiving insubstantial and unconvincing explanations from the target company it was decided, in view of the regulatory and reputational risk, that the deal should not go ahead.