Two extra healthy spoonfuls of legal tech news this lunchtime. First serving by Luminance, followed by Clifford Chance.
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Luminance Makes First Big Move Post-Foges, Links with VDR Company Ansarada
Luminance is integrating with SaaS information governance platform and virtual data room provider, Ansarada. It’s the first major move by the company since the departure of Emily Foges to Deloitte, announced in Artificial Lawyer two weeks ago.
Ansarada’s global platform is used by some major organisations, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and interestingly…….Deloitte, the legal AI doc analysis company said.
The integration of Ansarada with Luminance, and the subsequent enabling of rapid transfer of documents, ‘comes at a pivotal time for the legal industry, as lawyers cope with the challenges of undertaking M&A reviews whilst working remotely’, they added.
But why do this now? This is the reason they gave:
‘Many home broadband networks do not have sufficient bandwidth to cope with the sizeable manual downloads and uploads of datasets that come with modern transactions. However, most importantly, this integration will allow for automatic synchronisation of documents from the virtual data room into Luminance. Whilst this is critical in any due diligence exercise as documents are commonly added in tranches, this is all the more important when teams are working remotely and documents can more easily be missed.
‘By enabling the automatic transfer of documents from Ansarada to Luminance, all contracts can be read and analysed by Luminance’s machine learning technology, which quickly flags anomalous documents and areas that require urgent attention. Lawyers can therefore prioritise documents within their review, ensuring any problems get raised early on in the due diligence process and allowing the contractual aspects of the transaction to be dealt with expeditiously.’
As noted, it’s also the first big move since Foges left, at least that has been made public. Although, they can presumably do similar moves with other VDRs out there, if they wanted to
Luminance’s acting CEO, US-based Jason Brennan, said: ‘Ansarada’s platform is highly flexible and user-friendly, and by integrating with Luminance’s AI technology we are providing lawyers with a seamless M&A experience.’
Natasha Davidson, Chief Legal and Commercial Officer at Ansarada added: ‘At Ansarada, we are committed to raising and protecting the potential of our customers. Legal due diligence has adapted in response to COVID-19, presenting both challenges and opportunities for the legal profession.
‘Our partnership with Luminance delivers a truly intuitive platform for analysis, review and decision making. We consider this integration will be invaluable, supporting optimal and intelligent utilisation of data, for the legal profession and their professional clients.’
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Debt Security Compliance Expert System Tool Launched by Clifford Chance Applied Solutions
Clifford Chance Applied Solutions (CC-AS) has announced the launch of a new digital tool, going by the snappy moniker of ‘Continuing Obligations: Debt Securities’. The first version of the expert system-type compliance product will cover Luxembourg, the UK and Ireland, initially.
The product is the first of its kind on the market, the group noted. It does the following:
- Simplifies debt security obligations bringing together all relevant listing rules and action points into one simple online format;
- Saves time trying to track compliance and stock exchange obligations, in different jurisdictions;
- Protects from financial and reputational loss, as there is an increased focus on sanctions for companies failing to comply with guidelines.
Jeroen Plink, CEO at CC-AS said: ‘Failing to comply with debt securities reporting obligations fully and on time can result in sanctions, which can hurt an organisation’s bottom line and reputation. To tackle this, we have worked closely with Clifford Chance’s capital markets lawyers to create a simple and user-friendly digital tool which tells you what you need to do to avoid falling foul of the rules.
‘The product is accessible 24 hours a day and has instant access to customer support for further assistance. This tool ensures tracking on-going obligations for listed debt is seamless.’
While Andrew Coats, capital markets partner at Clifford Chance, added: ‘This digital tool puts all the information together in a single easily accessible place and should assist issuers in navigating the requirements and maintaining good relationships with their regulators.’
What’s not to like?
The Clifford Chance lawyers involved in the product were: partner Andrew Coats, associate Richard Whiteaway in London and partner Steve Jacoby, senior associate Eimear O’Dwyer, associate Daniel Ciarrocchi in Luxembourg.