# Gun Jumping Assessor

> Source: https://bryter.com/use-cases/gun-jumping-assessor/

A Gun Jumping Assessor aids merging firms that are awaiting clearance from antitrust and competition authorities to understand their obligations in the time period between signing and completion of the merger.

#### Background

In recent years, authorities have significantly increased the enforcement of procedural infringements regarding merger control rules.  

Merging parties that violate standstill obligations by prematurely integrating their businesses or attempting to influence each other’s activities and therefore “jump the gun” face substantial fines.  

In 2014,  U.S. Department of Justice [filed a complaint](https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=6064d8b8-8ff8-421b-81cb-80a5ead507c3) requiring Flakeboard America Limited, Flakeboard’s parent companies and SierraPine to pay nearly $5 million, including disgorged profits, to resolve the DOJ’s allegations that the parties engaged in illegal premerger coordination (“gun-jumping”), and the settlement imposed gun-jumping penalties of $3.8 million on both firms.  

Similarly, the EU Commission fined the company called Marine Harvest for “gun jumping” its acquisition of Norwegian salmon producer Morpol, imposing two separate fines for two different violations, in the total amount of EUR 20 million. 

To avoid the violation of these standstill obligations, employees that are for example part of the so-called clean team (which exchanges sensitive competitive information under strict confidentiality obligations) require clear and immediate guidance when deciding which information to share and to what extent. 

#### **Staying in line with gun jumping violations** 

The problem of gun jumping is deepened by the scope of information exchanged and case-by-case specificities, which are difficult to identify with certainty through manual efforts.  

As a rule of thumb, parties to a merger should avoid sharing information on customers, prices, costs, product innovation, marketing or strategic plans.  

Similarly, the buyer should not attempt to influence the target company's ordinary course of business decisions; price setting, output determination or new product launches; advertising and marketing programs; and customer relationships. 

#### **Automate compliance during mergers**

With BRYTER, companies access an application that assists in determining potential gun jumping risks associated with an action or exchange of information that occurs between the signing and closing of a merger. Legal departments and external legal counsels are immediately notified of any identified risks and can act based on this preliminary assessment.  

This ensures consistency and full compliance with regulations, at all times, while keeping the company safe of any potential high-impact fines. 

The user is guided through an interactive questionnaire that collects information and, based on these inputs, the tool automatically provides initial guidance on how to behave or whom to contact.  

The modular logic of our [**risk management software**](https://bryter.com/applications/risk-management/) allows the questionnaire to be adapted to the user’s inputs in a scenario-based manner in order to cover a wide range of possible actions which might amount to the infringement of standstill obligations.  

Law firms, which often provide and maintain the application, are automatically looped into the assessment as critical risks are identified or further advice is needed.

[Book a demo](https://bryter.com/get-demo/) to find out more about BRYTER [no-code platform](https://bryter.com/no-code-platform/). Alternatively, discover our [Data Breach Reporting ](https://bryter.com/use-cases/data-breach-reporting/)assistant and [GPDR Software](https://bryter.com/trends/gdpr-compliance-software/) use cases.