ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates why organizations should take occupational health hazards exposed to employees into consideration and budget for the costs of being sued when estimating the profitability of a potential merger or acquisition. This aspect of “due diligence” in mergers and acquisitions is a new advance within literature about mergers or acquisitions, and this is the first book to examine workers’ cancer risks in different industries, with examples of mergers or acquisitions marred by litigation by workers who developed cancer (or families of workers who died from cancer). This is (to our knowledge) the first book to give organizations and practitioners involved in mergers or acquisitions information about workers’ cancer risks, examples of legal culpability, and the cost or reputational consequences of losing a lawsuit, paying compensation, and losing investors’ confidence on the stock market, leading to dips in share prices around the time that lawsuits against the organization are publicised. This chapter encourages organizations to consider not just the potential costs of inheriting liability, but also the moral responsibility that they have to safeguard employees’ health and to prioritise their safety above profits. This chapter examines harm relating to carcinogenic substances because cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality. but organizations must consider all types of occupational health hazards when understanding the risks of a prospective merger or acquisition. We also encourage researchers to place the occupational health and safety of employees on their research agenda when they are planning new studies about mergers and acquisitions.
