Read the acquisition brief, answer two Questions, and compare your analysis with the transaction recommendation.
Type: Exercise block
What it does: Case Studies guide learners through a developing problem using connected evidence, questions, decisions, quizzes, and character interactions.
When it is useful: Use a Case Study when learners must analyse incomplete facts, choose between strategies, and see the consequences of their decisions.
Developing problem: A Case Study begins with a concrete role, client objective, factual background, and task. The learner does not receive the complete solution at once; further facts, evidence, and complications appear as they move through the matter.
Connected steps: Authors can combine Chats, Longreads, multiple-choice checks, open questions, and document exercises inside one Case Study. Each answer or decision can reveal the next step, and different answers can lead to different branches.
Applied judgment: Questions can test issue spotting, comparison, prioritisation, and advice rather than recall alone. Feedback can explain not only whether an answer is defensible, but which fact or legal consequence should change the learner's recommendation.
Progress and conclusion: The learner can see their progress through the Case Study and finish by producing a recommendation or work product that draws the earlier evidence together.
The situation: Alder Group wants to acquire Northstar Mobility, a UK route-planning software company. Northstar has 45 employees, three customer contracts producing 72% of its revenue, a leased office, valuable software, and a pending tax enquiry. The commercial team wants the business to continue without interruption but does not want Alder to inherit unknown historic liabilities.
The problem: A share purchase preserves the company and its contracts but transfers control of the entity together with its history. An asset purchase can let the buyer select what it acquires, but contracts, intellectual property, employees, leases, licences, and operational relationships may each need a separate transfer analysis. Neither structure is automatically safer.
The simulation: The learner works through the transaction facts, then compares a share deal and an asset deal across ownership, liabilities, contracts, employees, consents, tax, price mechanics, and continuity. The final stage asks them to recommend a structure and identify the protections and due-diligence findings that would still be needed whichever route is chosen.
The result: Learners understand that deal structure is a trade-off rather than a label. They learn to connect the buyer's commercial objective with transfer mechanics, liability allocation, tax input, consents, warranties, indemnities, and execution risk.