Understanding the future

While technology applications can seem futuristic and complex, the benefits are transparently simple. You benefit from better ways to process information, the automation of repetitive tasks, improved storage and management of masses of data, and also gain meaning from the process, with easier document sharing and workflows. Making best use of technology solutions means increased efficiency, limited exposure to risk, more productive and motivated people, and more energy for creative thinking. The way we apply technology can mean better ways to work while saving time and money for in-house legal teams, the wider business and other law firms.

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Exceeding expectations for a multibillion-dollar client’s complex global compliance needs

The problem

The challenge was to combine the knowledge and resources of 57 business units in 34 countries to build a searchable library of all laws and requirements, to better comply with each jurisdiction’s regulations. The client previously used over 150 separate spreadsheets across its global business units to identify and track compliance. With laws everywhere constantly changing, this was a risk issue and also inefficient.

The resolution

Together, Reed Smith Global Solutions and GravityStackTM custom built a central compliance repository for over 300 users in 34 countries to access and modify content concurrently. We also developed a library of global laws and regulations that govern the functional areas of each business unit. This contains compliance requirements for all geographic jurisdictions to help our client perform quarterly audits to check for regulation changes. The overall platform has become a global knowledge base, enabling users to search and filter through all jurisdictions when conducting global business, to identify specific violations that could lead to financial penalties.

The impact

We delivered the technology and library in one month, and not the six that the client expected to take working on its own, saving the client between $3 million and $5 million in time and fees. The U.S. Federal Reserve Board gave its approval to the library as a sound method for compliance tracking. Working together to combine our innovation with a flexible and customizable technology enabled us to exceed our client’s expectations.

Award-winning technology solution accelerated a multibillion-dollar deal

The problem

A top global financial institution involved in the negotiation of the multibillion-dollar sale of various business unit holdings needed to analyze tens of thousands of its corporate contracts with various third parties to determine the restrictions and obligations to which each of their holdings was bound. And if that wasn’t enough, the project had a strict deadline for completion of 30 days.

Initially, these contracts were being reviewed in the client’s internal deal database platform, which became time consuming and inefficient. Completing the analysis would have taken anywhere from six months to a year had the client continued using the original technology. With billions of dollars at stake, nearly 300 stakeholders across the globe and a ticking clock to get the deal closed, the situation required Reed Smith to think outside the traditional technology parameters in order to meet the strict timeline and minimize cost.

The resolution

The GravityStackTM team leveraged its Diligence product to house the critical information in its central cloud repository, which was accessible to hundreds of client employees and contracted parties around the world. The team further developed the software by building custom applications to automate the tracking of required consent from parties, including the attachment of important documentation and the contact details of those parties whose consent was sought and received.

Finally, the team leveraged machine-learning analytic technology to quickly organize similar contract clauses and restrictions. This enabled GravityStackTM and the client to efficiently identify parties requiring the same types of consent for mass distribution, rather than sifting through them manually.

The impact

This reduced manual hours of searching through entire agreements to find third-party consent obligations by more than 70%. It also allowed us to track consent status in a central location, preventing errors, lowering risk, and saving over $4 million in costs. Finally, the automation of communication improved the M&A process and made the closing mechanics more efficient.

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