It is not uncommon for business partners to fail to fulfill their obligations under contracts they have entered into. The reasons for this can vary — sometimes an entrepreneur simply overestimates their capabilities and resources, and sometimes such behavior is a deliberate deception of the counterparty.
How to check a business partner?
Criminal and commercial law often qualify such actions as fraud. For this purpose, offenders have a multitude of schemes, including the creation of shell companies. And in such a case, it will be very difficult to force the company to fulfill the agreements or compensate for the damage, even if the court case is won, and the matter is handed over to bailiffs. Moreover, an unreliable partner damages not only the business but also the company’s reputation. Therefore, the logic of entrepreneurs who seek to identify unreliable counterparts at the stage of discussion and negotiations, before the agreements are put in writing, is understandable — this allows minimizing risks and is much cheaper than potential problems in the future.
This type of legal service, such as checking business partners, is currently gaining increasing popularity. The check has proven to be an effective tool for ensuring the financial security of the company. The client receives all the necessary information about who their new business partner really is, and if the results are unfavorable, they have the opportunity to reject cooperation with a dangerous and unscrupulous counterparty.
Issues of commercial law in Israel
Commercial law does not assume any standard list or set of parameters that need to be checked to ensure the reliability of a partner. Except that in the USA there is the so-called ‘Rule of Five Cs’, when the parameters for checking a partner are denoted by words starting with the letter ‘C’, namely:
- Character of the partner, that is, their business reputation, responsibility, attitude to their obligations, position in the business world;
- Capacity, in other words — the authenticity of the partner, their charter documents, the history of the company’s legal status, the operations it carries out, samples of the products it produces;
- Property and capital, as well as the capital structure and the ratio of liabilities to assets, that is, does your business partner have their own capital and are they ready (or can they) use it to some extent if they need to fulfill their obligations;
- Collateral — this is the partner’s ownership rights to assets and their service life, as well as the likelihood of their moral obsolescence, the partner’s obligations for loans and leasing, mortgages, possible or existing lawsuits, etc.;
- Conditions, that is, the current state of the economy sector with which the new business partner is associated, their position in this sector, the competitiveness of their products, the impact of inflation, etc.
- Bonus* Some experts add another factor to this list — control, when the compliance of the transaction and accompanying documents with legal norms is checked.
In practice, the check of business partners is most often of interest to entrepreneurs in terms of finding out the real economic situation of a future partner, the history of the company, its influence on the market. It often happens that they ask to check not the company, but a specific person managing that company. It is no secret that sometimes the personality and personal qualities of the owner of the company can influence the conclusion or non-conclusion of a contract.
The only question remains — where to legally obtain all the necessary information?
Checking business partners
In America, for example, there are special databases for this purpose. One of the largest and most well-known is the Dun & Bradstreet system, which provides the necessary information to interested parties in the USA, the United Arab Emirates, Scandinavia, and Spain. It should be noted that information about commercial organizations also includes a database of bankruptcies, journalistic investigations, audit documentation, and other documents related to specific companies.
That is, along with general information concerning issues such as the place and date of registration, the list of owners, management structure, some facts about the financial condition, including real economic indicators, or, say, facts related to individual events — mergers, acquisitions, or illegal activities, there is also information about shares and court fines, copies of court decisions, and other important documents about the company’s activities. In Israel, such a system is not yet sufficiently developed, although there is no doubt about the need for its creation.
Who needs a business partner check?
Those who:
- Have planned a transaction for a large sum;
- Are preparing for a transaction related to starting a joint business;
- Plan to delegate some of their powers to a partner;
- Are about to hire a new person for a key position and so on.
Sometimes there is an urgent need to check a counterparty when the owner needs an independent and confidential examination, a kind of financial investigation, in case they have suspicions of abuse of trust and powers by their top managers.
Checking business partners is also very relevant if one of the parties to the transaction is a company or a businessman non-resident of Israel. In this case, the difficulty is that it can be hard for the company’s in-house lawyer to correctly assess all the factors about a company located in an unfamiliar country.
We offer you not to take risks, but to turn to experienced specialists for a business report. We will conduct a full Due Diligence, find out all the details about the financial situation, about the business and personal reputation enjoyed by your potential business partner, check the authenticity of the documents provided by them, the financial stability of the company, learn about its main activities and affiliated structures.
At the same time, all the information provided will be obtained from the widest possible range of sources, which will allow you to assess the possible risks and make a considered decision. In conducting such a check, we form a project group consisting of qualified auditors, lawyers, and tax consultants who will conduct a comprehensive check of the legality and commercial feasibility of the project. As a result, you will receive recommendations from specialists on the nuances of possible cooperation with the counterparty or advice on adjusting the agreement, changing its price, or other possible options in this particular situation.
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