According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), “successor liability applies to all kinds of criminal and civil liabilities, and FCPA violations are no exception.” Therefore, businesses that acquire others can be charged for their wrongdoing, even if it occurred years before the deal. This applies not only to FCPA violations, but also to other compliance risks and also outside the US.

According to Robert Johnston, Valerie Charles and Jamen Tyler, conducting a thorough and prompt post-close FCPA compliance audit might help insulate the acquirer from successor liability based on past or ongoing misconduct by the target. Based on concrete case law, the authors have designed a post-Closing compliance integration. They have summarised these best practices in a newly published article on Corporate Compliance Insights.