The litigious culture prevailing in American business has bankrupted

A - having been sued is past perfect. Having no funds is present tense. It should say having been sued having had no funds or something like that so that these two expressions joined by and are parallel.


B - having been sued is present perfect and is not parallel with past perfect "has bankrupted" The way it is tacked on at the end of the sentence is awkward and it is unclear what "having been sued" is the verb of.

C - "Those that were sued" narrows firms, and should be an essential modifier without commas


D - Essential modifier "that were sued" is used correctly without commas. "they had no funds and were forced to liquidate" correctly uses past perfect "had no funds" with past were forced to liquidate in a logical manner - looks good

E - Having had changes the meaning to indicate the firms still have no funds, when this was not indicated in the original sentence.

OA should be D

why isn't D wrong on the basis of an incomplete sentence?

"were forced to liquidate in the face of mounting legal expenses".

there is no subject, right?

There is a semicolon. The second part of the sentence is

; they had no funds set aside for legal defense, and were forced to liquidate in the face of mounting legal expenses.

The subject after the semicolon is they. They had no funds and were forced to liquidate. This is a independent clause.

I wonder if option D doesn't change the original cause & effect relation, completely.

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