And on what did the company base that opinion?The company must...

And on what did the company base that opinion?

The company must have had some information available to it in order to form that opinion that such a deal was likely, or at least possible, in that time frame.

If it turns out that the company actually had no information available to it in which it could reasonably form such an opinion, then the statement could be false and misleading and contrary to the Corps Act IMO