Verified against Perplexity Comet · 2026-08-12
Run a background check on a vendor or counterparty before you're the one explaining why nobody checked
A phased due-diligence brief for Comet covering public record, reputation, litigation history, and financial-stability signals — built so the research task can't quietly stop at whatever the company's own site says about itself.
The prompt
Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.
Run a due-diligence background check on the counterparty below before we move forward with signing a 3-year exclusive supply contract worth roughly $2M annually. Treat this as a research task with distinct phases, not a single search-and-summarize pass — go through each phase in order and don't skip one because an earlier phase already looked reassuring. COUNTERPARTY a mid-size contract manufacturer we're considering for a multi-year supply agreement WHAT WE'RE ABOUT TO ENTER INTO signing a 3-year exclusive supply contract worth roughly $2M annually WHAT WOULD BE DISQUALIFYING any pending litigation over IP theft, any history of missed delivery deadlines with past clients, or ownership ties to a competitor PHASE 1 — WHO THEY ARE Confirm the legal entity name, where it's registered, how long it's operated under this name, and whether it's a subsidiary of, or recently spun out from, another company. Note if the entity name on their marketing materials differs from any legal or registration filings you can find. PHASE 2 — TRACK RECORD Search for litigation, regulatory action, or formal complaints involving this entity or its named leadership — not just news coverage, which can lag or miss smaller actions. Separately search for customer or partner complaints in forums, review sites, or industry groups, and note whether a pattern shows up across multiple independent sources or whether it's a single loud complaint. PHASE 3 — FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL SIGNALS Look for any public signal of financial instability — layoffs, executive departures in a short window, funding difficulties, missed public deadlines — while being clear that absence of bad news is not the same as confirmed stability, and say so rather than treating silence as a clean bill of health. PHASE 4 — CHECK AGAINST DISQUALIFYING CONCERNS Go back through any pending litigation over IP theft, any history of missed delivery deadlines with past clients, or ownership ties to a competitor specifically and state, for each one, whether you found evidence for it, evidence against it, or no evidence either way — don't fold this into the general narrative above; address each concern by name so none of them can get lost in a longer summary. FINAL BRIEF One paragraph verdict: proceed, proceed with named conditions, or hold pending more research — and if it's the last one, say specifically what additional check would resolve the open question, not just that more research is needed in general.
Customize
Optional — swap in your own details for the highlighted parts above.
Why this works
Structuring this as four ordered phases rather than one open-ended 'research this company' instruction matters because unstructured due-diligence research tends to stop as soon as it finds something reassuring — a clean-looking marketing site or a few positive reviews satisfies the surface-level goal and the search stops before checking litigation records or financial-instability signals that don't show up on page one of a general search. Phasing forces those checks to happen regardless of what earlier phases found, which is exactly the discipline a real due-diligence process is supposed to enforce. Separating the legal-entity check into its own phase matters because a subsidiary or recently renamed entity can carry a clean record simply because the record is attached to the wrong name — checking registration and entity history first prevents every later phase from unknowingly searching for the wrong legal name. The instruction that absence of bad news isn't confirmed stability directly counters a model's tendency to report a null result ('no evidence of financial trouble found') in language that reads as reassurance rather than as the more accurate 'this wasn't checkable with public information' — the distinction matters enormously to whoever is relying on this brief to make a real decision. Requiring each disqualifying concern to be addressed by name in its own dedicated phase, rather than folded into a general narrative, exists because a long-form summary can technically mention a concern in passing while never actually stating whether evidence for or against it was found — named, itemized treatment closes that gap and makes the brief auditable against the specific concerns that were supposed to be checked.
What you get back
Phase 1: Legal entity registered under a slightly different name than shown on their marketing site; operating for 6 years, no subsidiary ties found. Phase 2: One small-claims dispute found from 2023, resolved; no pattern of complaints across review sites beyond normal variance. Phase 3: A senior operations executive departed in the past 4 months per LinkedIn; no public statement on the reason, no other instability signals found. Phase 4 (disqualifying concerns): no evidence of IP litigation found; no pattern of missed deadlines found in available reviews; no ownership ties to a named competitor found. Verdict: proceed with a condition — get a direct explanation for the recent executive departure before signing, since it's the one open item without a public answer.
Verified against
Perplexity Comet 2026 browser agent · 2026-08-12
Changelog
- 2026-08-12 — Initial publish, verified against Perplexity Comet 2026 browser agent.
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