By Stephen Quinlivan, Jill Radloff and David Jenson (September 21, 2017, 4:48 PM EDT) -- The Financial Accounting Standards Board's new revenue recognition standard is expected to have wide ranging effects on mergers and acquisitions. The new revenue recognition standard under generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP (Accounting Standards Update 2014-09; Topic 606), will be applicable to public companies for annual reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2017. Thus, the impact of the new standard should begin to be assessed for public company transactions that are negotiated in the fall of 2017. For private companies, the new standard will be effective a year later, for annual reporting periods beginning after Dec. 15, 2018. This article provides a summary of the new accounting standard, describes several ways the new standard will impact M&A transactions, and offers sample representations for use in M&A transactions before and after the adoption of the new standard....