I've been part of due diligence from both sides of the table both in investment situations and cases of M&A activity. You're not really set up to detect out an

I've been part of due diligence from both sides of the table both in investment situations and cases of M&A activity. You're not really set up to detect out and out fraud like this. For one thing there might be a limited subset of data you really have access to (eg in this type of situation they may not have been in a position to see all the row level customer records before signing because they were competing for business in those customer segments so it is reasonable to restrict access. You might get aggregate data that looks sane and have to go on that for instance. Secondly you may not actually have the time needed to check things out properly. There's often deadline pressure where the deal has to complete by a certain date or it triggers break clauses or some other party gets a right of refusal or whatever so often the clock runs out even if you would otherwise be able to do the analysis.