This Article identifies problems and opportunities at the intersection of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate crime and compliance. In M&A, criminal successor liability poses a special problem in that it is less predictable and qualitatively more threatening to buyers than successor liability in tort or contract. Private successor liability requires a buyer to bear bounded economic costs, which the contracting process can in turn reallocate to sellers. Criminal successor liability, however, threatens a buyer with non-indemnifiable, and potentially ruinous, punishment for another firm’s wrongful acts.
Source: The Market for Corporate Criminals by Andrew Jennings :: SSRN
