Another view on Qilu and Brendan Rae. I commend m
Post# of 148110
I find Mr Rae's professional bio, as posted on CYDY's website, to be extremely impressive. He has returned to CYDY as Executive Vice President for Business Development. His background and experience suggest that he is ideally suited to identify potential partners or buyers, and then play a key role in subsequent negotiations. However, I would assume that his most recent employer would not be one of his targets nor that he would participate in negotiating a deal with his former employer if any such negotiations were to occur. And while engaging in such activities would not likely constitute a direct conflict of interest (assuming the absence of any residual financial ties between Mr Rae and Qilu), I can't imagine that either Mr Rae or the CYDY board would be comfortable with tasking Mr Rae to play a key role in such a major transaction with a former employer and former colleagues. Obviously, Mr Rae could be walled off from any info regarding a possible deal with Qilu, but that would seem to defeat the whole purpose of reacquiring his considerable talents.
By the way, I would apply the same reasoning to Sidley Austin in terms of its participation in targeting a partner/buyer or negotiating any of the afore mentioned deals. Obviously, if the target were an existing Sidley client, a direct conflict would exist, but even if Sidley did not currently represent the target, if it had a significant past client relationship with the target, I would not expect Sidley to be involved in a transaction involving both a present and former client.
In either of the hypothetical scenarios discussed above, the element of trust, in my opinion, would be subject to compromise due to the significance of the prior relationships.