An acquisition agreement often obligates the buyer of the shares to notify the sellers of any claims against the sellers arising from an infringement of the provided representations and warranties within a certain term (e.g. 2 months) after becoming aware of the fact causing the infringement. The reason behind this is that timely notification enables the sellers to take action to restrict the damage. A second purpose of imposing a term is to establish legal certainty between parties. Terms of 30 days, 2 months, etc., which at the time of the negotiations may have seemed long enough for the buyer,…
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In acquisition agreements, the value of a company is often based on a multiple of EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) or another parameter. If, in retrospect, the communicated figures appear to paint an overstated picture of the company, the indemnification mechanism will usually provide for compensation at a rate of EUR 1 in damages for each euro in deviation of the communicated net equity (or another formula whereby the adapted price equals the established lesser value). However if the correction involves a parameter to which a multiple was applied for price determination purposes, then that same multiple…
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