“Marriott Says Starwood Data Breach Affects Up to 500 Million People,” The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2018 (online). Data breach potentially affecting passports and credit cards of as many as 500 million guests at Marriott’s Starwood properties, which were acquired in 2016. They knew about this in September, but reflects a breach that may go back to 2014.
So, two years after an acquisition, the target’s information security practices blow up in the acquiror’s face. What does that say about the acquiror’s duty to integrate the data practices and controls around information protection?
Does your M&A team think about information governance issues? Is that an identified risk, with an identified (and owned) action plan? Did the Board identify this as a risk? What the value of this information considered part of the transaction value? How was that reflected?
infogovnuggets 