Technology

Challenge
A major global investment bank produced large quantities of tailored financial instruments, which were:

• complex and high risk, requiring high levels of drafting accuracy;
• subject to tight deadlines; and
• drafted by an in-house legal team that was under increasing pressure to reduce costs.

Solution
Ashurst Finance lawyers prepared suites of standard terms and conditions which were then coded by Ashurst Advance Legal Technologists and uploaded to our automation solution.

Benefits

• Drafting times reduced by over 90%.
• Drafting delegated to junior personnel, reducing production costs.
• Increased consistency resulting in an overall reduction in portfolio risk.

Challenge
A large listed retailer lacked centralised control over contracts entered into by its various business units. This raised several issues e.g.:

• contracts stored on various drives and personal folders;
• lost documents, complicating the handling of disputes;
• contract variations agreed but not signed, reducing ability to enforce;
• lack of awareness of contracts affecting multiple divisions; and
• loss of corporate memory through staff turnover.

Solution
Following detailed analysis by the Ashurst legal team, a contract management solution was configured.  Legal Analysts then reviewed all existing and ongoing contracts, uploading them to the newly established system and setting automatic reminders for renewals and reviews. 

Benefits

• Legal team and CFO with a complete and real-time overview of their contract portfolio.
• Commercial teams able produce reports on their contracts, values and key dates.
• Significant reduction in complexity through unavailable documents.
• Increase in contract renewal deadlines met and efficiency in management of portfolio.