By: Leonardo Neri
Some time ago, the Uber case became known for how the impact of Privacy & Data Protection can directly impact a huge mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deal.
The company Uber had been valued in the market at the time for $70 billion. And Softbank wished to acquire it.
However, Uber suffered a huge reputational damage due to the exposure of its customer data in 2017, reaching some 57 million leaked individuals.
With this, there was a revaluation of the values of the company's assets that had a sharp drop, reducing from the initial $70 billion to almost $40 billion.
In other words, the values practically halved, which made the operation that was being negotiated unfeasible. Such an event shows how important it is nowadays to monitor the issue of privacy in companies and, consequently, in the execution of M&A operations.