Axiom, the leading global alternative legal services provider, today announced the Contracts Intelligence Platform, a state-of-the-art technology solution for corporate transaction teams that speeds the contract review process, reveals potential deal synergies and provides business-critical information in a clear, elegant system.
The Contracts Intelligence Platform, used during buy or sell-side due diligence or during post-merger integration, provides two key functions: First, the technology automates contract review, using artificial intelligence to collect and identify relevant clauses. As part of Axiom’s M&A Diligence and Integration solution, experienced legal professionals also provide oversight to ensure data accuracy and interpret contractual language into structured, measurable data fields.
Second, the Contracts Intelligence Platform provides users with a radically transparent view of the contract data, presenting insights through a fully configurable business intelligence dashboard housed on a secure web portal. Visualizations are built around specific use cases that are common risk areas or requirements for a transaction, such as evaluating change of control obligations or identifying uncapped liabilities. Detailed analysis can be shared with key stakeholders to inform an array of critical decisions companies must evaluate throughout the M&A lifecycle. This reduces a significant burden on legal teams in a cost-effective way, streamlining the deal process and allowing them to provide meaningful business value to other functions. After the project is completed, companies can keep continued access to the portal for an ongoing service fee.
With US tax reform creating a more favourable environment for corporates looking to divest assets, Axiom is uniquely poised to give sellers a competitive edge in the deal-making process. The company, which has supported $500 billion in corporate transactions and analyses more than 10 million contract data points annually, will leverage this massive amount of data to train and build the technology that powers the Contracts Intelligence Platform to analyse contracts with unmatched speed and accuracy. In 2017, more than 200,000 contracts were reviewed using an early version of the product. Some of the world’s largest companies, including a growing list of Fortune 100 firms, have already used the platform to support multiple deals, and Axiom has also worked with multiple sides of a single deal, highlighting synergy opportunities while maintaining strict confidentiality.
One example is the merger of global clinical research organization INC Research with global professional services company inVentiv, a $7.4b deal that created a new 22,000-person fully-integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization, Syneos Health (NASDAQ: SYNH).
“Axiom’s approach to contract analysis applied AI-powered technology to surface the most important clauses in the highest-value commercial agreements so a skilled reviewer could prioritize their time in the right places,” says Andrew Shaw, Assistant General Counsel and Commercial Lead, INC Research, now Syneos Health (Nasdaq: INCR). “Axiom’s technology, the Axiom Contracts Intelligence Platform, helped our team analyse and compare provisions across the two entities faster and at a lower cost than the status quo alternative.”
“Axiom’s Contracts Intelligence Platform provides actionable insights that can help both buyers and sellers make corporate transactions more valuable to their shareholders, informing valuation and enabling companies to identify risks and synergies earlier and more accurately,” said Conor Miller, SVP of M&A Due Diligence and Integration Services at Axiom. “Companies have started to truly view digestible, comprehensive contract analysis as a competitive advantage, especially for serial transactors, and a key element in orchestrating a successful deal.”