U.S. and European companies continue to receive bids to sell themselves and their significant assets to companies based in the People’s Republic of China.
Evaluation of these proposals requires due diligence of the acquiror’s ownership structure, assets, cash position, and financing sources. Moreover, even if this due diligence exercise gives rise to satisfactory results, the continued unpredictability of the PRC government (including its recently enhanced foreign exchange control measures), coupled with the ties of some of these buyers and financing sources to governmental entities in the PRC, as well as the challenges that a non-PRC counterparty faces when seeking to enforce contractual obligations and non-PRC judgments in PRC courts, merit the implementation of an array of innovative provisions in M&A Agreements to protect the seller/target. Several months ago, we reviewed these provisions in a popular post. This new post updates that earlier post to reflect recent regulatory developments and the evolution of market practice.
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