Reducing the Risk of Post-Merger Discovery Surprises in M&A

http://ow.ly/a1s6y

An article by Chris Ruggeri and Bart Siegel posted on law.com on the LTN webpage.

The article discusses mergers and acquisitions, and how this process relates to preservation and review of electronically stored information.

The article states, "As companies are bought and sold, legal obligations may transfer with the acquired entity to the purchaser. The transferred legal obligations typically carry with them the responsibility to preserve and potentially produce electronically stored information (ESI) that may become evidence pursuant to a legal or regulatory proceeding. When this potential evidence is in electronic form, someone unfamiliar with the legal matter may see a hard drive as "just old hardware able to be disposed of during the transition" or "an outdated server that may be a candidate for decommissioning."

Hard drives, servers, and other storage devices may store potentially relevant data necessary to meet basic preservation requirements and support or refute the allegations in a matter."

The article provides tips as to how to handle systems that are used to maintain electronically stored information, and discusses some of the legal reasons as to why these issues need to be addressed during an M&A process.