The joint venture agreement, the constitutional documents of the American entity, the share register, and any agreement dealing with board appointments, veto rights or management control. Evidence that both companies are actively doing business belongs alongside them.
The governing documents, not the term sheet
Term sheets and letters of intent describe intentions that often change in drafting, and the analysis has to be done on the documents that will actually govern. Ask the corporate lawyer for the near-final versions and read the parts that deal with control: how directors are appointed, what decisions need unanimity, who appoints the managing officer, and what happens in a deadlock. Alongside those, gather the ordinary trading evidence for both entities — leases, customer contracts, payroll, tax filings — because the requirement that both be doing business is separate from the relationship question and is often overlooked while the structure is being debated.
Ask the corporate lawyer to flag anything in the draft that would leave control ambiguous, because ambiguity has to be resolved by somebody eventually. Hypothetical example: Kaito leads a Canadian firm that designs automated beekeeping equipment and will oversee its U.S. subsidiary.
The first document review should sort records into corporate relationship, foreign employment, and proposed American role. Share registers, board material and tax records may resolve the ownership point; payroll, contracts and reporting lines may resolve the employment point. Obtain those objective records before drafting declarations, so statements can cite dates and positions consistently.
A recurring problem is an impressive executive résumé with no evidence showing who employed the person abroad or how the proposed position will exercise executive or managerial discretion.