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Oy! I can't stand Davis, but this is awful.

This thing does not bode well for Simon for an important reason: he should have thoroughly checked out Hindelang before investing. It highlights that he used poor judgement in not doing so. His use of "other family members pressured me" as an excuse looks weak as a defence. He has enough money that he could have at least followed his intuition and had a more thorough, personal investigation done.

I would never get into bed, literally or businesswise with anyone whose background I hadn't investigated using PIs, or private investigators. (This knowledge was acquired the hard way - experience!) Nowadays you have to look into people's private lives. Going back 10 years is insufficient, it is necessary to go back to the teen years. Deloitte and Touche just skimmed the surface.

Yup. You would go and look back further. I'm surprised Simon's firm didn't check as far back as records allowed. The federal government investigates any one for a high level federal positively exhaustively before that person is hired. One woulda thunk the Simon firm was as rigorous in their running a background check on Paul Hindelang. No wonder they got hit with a $78 million judgment. It shows what can happen in the business world when you don't dot and cross all your I's and T's before entering business with someone you don't know.

he should have thoroughly checked out Hindelang before investing.

You have to understand the SCOPE of the investments of a company as large as Simon and Sons. This was one of hundreds of business investments they were involved in at the time.

A typical corporate background check was conducted by Deloitte Touche, a major accounting firm used by Simon & Sons. The search went back 10 years and focused on Mr. Hindelang’s professional reputation. By all accounts, he was a recognized leader in the industry. His drug past was beyond the ten-year window typical of these investigations

A professional background check is certainly reasonable and prudent. That's why you hire those kinds of businesses. That Bill himself should have been looking into the guy's background is sort of like suggesting The President go investigate potential postal employees.

But his intuition was not with the guy, who fooled just about everybody he did business with, but rather with the deal. So when he couldn't convince his partners not to take the deal as a deal, that was the end of it.

I really can't hold Simon's family to any higher standards than a reasonable man would have at the time. I'm sure Delotte was following current best practices in following him back for ten years, and I would think this is as far back as public records go in any event. It would have coat a boatload of money to go any further, and there was no indication that they'd find anything.

I think most people would find your cautious attitude just a shade extreme. Most people who stay clean for 10 years are going to stay clean for the rest of their lives. This is a very rare incident where this guy's past came back to haunt him.

I think it's important to bear in mind the following, and close this one out for good:

Simon would not have made this investment, and
The terms Hindelang offered were fair, and there was no moral problem with what the investment company did.

That closes it all, far as I'm concerned.