Six Do’s and Don’ts for Due Diligence Questionnaires

“Wait, they want three months of the CEO’s personal bank statements? Are they insane?” This was a real request to one of my clients via a due diligence questionnaire. When I called to inquire with the requesting company why they needed this, they said that they wanted to ensure that the CEO wasn’t receiving “unusual payments” that could be a bribe.

This raised several questions. First, how could they tell if the payment was “unusual?” If we look at the history of bribes, most of them go out through a business account of some sort, not the CEO’s. And what about the logistics of where all of this personal information will be stored and who will be reviewing it…