"We do this very careful due diligence, " says Hess.

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Failure to conduct such due diligence might very well lead to civil liability, if not criminal exposure.

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These relationships can breed a sense of complacency, where executives who normally are very savvy do not do appropriate due diligence on investment recommendations and end up getting into sophisticated investment strategies that sound good at the time but work against them in the long run.

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This can make it very difficult to do any kind of due diligence.

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The FBI "did their due diligence and did a very thorough job about trying to run that to ground, " Mr. Rogers said.

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In more efforts to keep the process honest, CAAs have to meet new requirements, including formal forensic training (very CSI of them) and stronger due diligence standards.

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On this count, select your managers very carefully and be sure to do your due diligence.

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Dr. Tony Wicks, director of anti-money laundering (AML) solutions at NICE Actimize, said the Arab Spring made this a very busy year for everyone in AML, which broadly includes transaction monitoring, customer due diligence (Know Your Customer or Customer Due Diligence) and on the sanctions front, Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) as listed by the UN, the UK Treasury or the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

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No due diligence in the acquisition of a Compaq or an Autonomy can ultimately serve the shareholders absent this very basic sense of what the company is all about.

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