Glossary · Deal process
Clean team
Also called clean room
Definition
A clean team is a small group, often outside advisers, allowed to review competitively sensitive information such as prices, customer terms or margins when the buyer is a competitor. Competition law stops that information reaching the buyer's business before closing, so the clean team reports only conclusions. Data rooms handle this with separate folders and permissions.
Where clean team comes up
On this site, in our guides and in the conversations we've written up.
Video · Visible What a pre-seed fund needs in your data room before it wires the money A clean room does impress her, and by clean she means folders labelled properly: one for incorporation docs, one for employee agreements, and so on. 
Video · SS&C Intralinks Cisco and Accenture on using diligence AI to plan integration before close Corporate development teams may need a clean room or clean team to look at it. 
Video · Khaitan & Co Cross-border diligence: why deals fall on clearances, not interest Data protection rules mean employee data often arrives summarised, jumbled or sampled, so the panel adds SFTP transfers, clean rooms, aggregated data and redaction to the data room. Related terms
Merger control The review by competition authorities that larger deals need before they can close. Granular permissions Settings that control, per user or group and per folder, who can view, download or print each document. Non-disclosure agreement A contract in which the receiving party promises to keep the information it is given confidential. Binding offer A buyer's final offer after due diligence, usually with a marked-up purchase agreement attached. Bolt-on acquisition A smaller company bought to add to an existing platform business, common in private equity. Buy-side The buyer's side of a deal: the acquirer or investor, and the advisers who help them find, check and price a target. Carve-out The sale of a division or business unit that has to be separated from its parent company. Corporate development The in-house team that finds, runs and integrates a company's acquisitions and partnerships.