THE NOTION OF FRAUD AND ITS IMPACT IN EVERYDAY M&A DEALS

In recent episodes, Rob and Toby have started to look at M&A fraud and certainly, the HP Autonomy deal was on a massive scale, as was Theranos. And here in Australia, we are just starting to unravel the Ponzi scheme of Melissa Craddick.  But those are all massive frauds that captured almost global attention.  

But what about the risk of uncovering fraud in everyday M&A? And maybe it's not fraud in the strict sense but more likely dodgy practices, knowing turning a blind eye, engrained revenue recognition practices?  How can you identify these sorts of behavior? Does regular Due Diligence cut it?  we think not, but there are some techniques that everyone should consider, and it does not necessitate diving into forensic levels of DD.