MAY/JUNE 2019
16
INHOUSE
hen it comes to conducting due dili-
gence in mergers and acquisitions, it's
all about looking for risks in a haystack
of data, thanks in large part to the pro-
liferation of documents and information to
review for a proposed deal.
M&A lawyers say good due dili-
gence is as important to a deal as
the negotiation of the actual core
agreement. That means the way
due diligence work gets done has
been undergoing an evolution in
several ways as in-house clients seek to
control costs, have better certainty on what
they are bidding on and seek to achieve a
more positive outcome in terms of post-
merger integration. Technology, such as ar
-
tificial intelligence, is one way due diligence
review is getting done faster and smarter.
"The technology allows you to do your
job better," says Anne Glover, practice
group leader of Blake Cassels & Gray
-
don LLP's InSource Team in Toronto. "It
doesn't take away the fact that humans still
need to look at it, but it allows you to be
smarter and use your judgment."
"People are realizing there are a lot more
documents and I think a lot of people have
not yet changed the way they do due dili
-
gence," she says. "So there is obviously a
conflict because deals are time sensitive
and if you're still doing it the old way you're
never going to get through it. The whole
goal of due diligence is to find out what your
risks are; it's not to find all the stuff you
don't care about."
At Blakes, the InSource team's job is to
find the risks, and if they can find them us
-
ing AI, it means they can raise the issue with
clients sooner.
"They can go to the other side to deal
with anything that is an issue," she says.
"The volume of the documents is so big. If
New service providers and tools such as AI are being used to
allow bidders to due diligence faster.
By Jennifer Brown
