Background
A private equity firm was considering the acquisition of a cybersecurity company but first required deeper visibility into the legal and reputational risks of the target’s executives.
Case Study
During the investigation, we uncovered that in the late 90’s a C-suite executive’s law license was suspended for multiple years. Digging deeper into the disciplinary history, our investigators discovered the suspension stemmed from a guilty plea to reckless homicide and fleeing the scene of a fatal DUI accident—convictions not reflected in the subject’s home state criminal history because the crime occurred in a different state. The subject served prison time for the conviction and, upon release, had the record expunged—effectively erasing it from public view, with his current company having no knowledge of the charge whatsoever.
Impact
Most background check providers stop at local litigation searches and don’t cover license verification at all, meaning they would have missed the homicide connection entirely. By connecting license records, litigation history, and out-of-state criminal charges, Vcheck’s expert investigators uncovered hidden relationships that traditional checks overlook. Armed with this information, our client was able to fully understand the reputational concerns of their target’s C-suite before assuming any financial risk.