Yesterday Thomson Reuters announced the acquisition of Pagero Group AB, a Swedish company that provides a secure network to enable an automated, secure, and compliant exchange of invoices and other documents that seamlessly integrates with customers’ ERP systems. The company was acquired for $800M USD and currently provides solutions in 75 different countries. With Continuous Tax Control systems spreading across the globe like wildfire, this puts TR ahead of other legal ebilling providers in terms of having a potential end-to-end-to-end solution for law firm back office systems to governmental CTC to legal ebilling client systems. Smart move.
Category: Product Acquisition
Information pertaining to the acquisition of an Enterprise Legal Management product
Onit Acquires LawBase
Today Onit announced its acquisition of the case management system LawBase. This follows the early 2025 acquisition of Legal Files, another case management system, and deepens Onit’s commitment and foothold in the SLED market.
Acquisition of Elite
Bob Ambrogi reports that Elite has been acquired by Francisco Partners, a global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses from its current owners, TPG Capital and Thomson Reuters. Our best wishes to our friends at Elite in this new iteration of the company.
Brightflag Acquired by Wolters Kluwer
Just read that Wolters Kluwer has acquired ELM vendor Brightflag for $480M. See here for more on the acquisition.
As ever, the legal ebilling world continues to amaze with acquisitions in this space. One can only wonder what else is in store…
Bottomline Legal Spend Management Acquired by Sedgwick
It was announced today that Sedgwick TPA has acquired Bottomline’s Legal Spend Management Division, including the Legal-X and Legal eXchange platforms. Bottomline’s legal spend products are leading solutions in the insurance industry and include TPA features for managing claims, so this looks like a good fit. The acquisition combines Bottomline’s legal spend platforms with other Sedgwick claims and bill review solutions, allowing for a full suite of solutions under a new Sedgwick Legal Spend Management division.
Industry Acquisitions
While I have been busy with client work over the past few months, the legal ebilling industry has gone acquisition mad. Below are some highlights.
- On 24 March, 2021, Mitratech was acquired by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan with HG, Mitratech’s former owner, retaining minority interest
- On 1 September, 2021, Bodhala was acquired by Onit
- On 22 September, 2021, Alyne, a GRC company, was acquired by Mitratech
- On 28 September, 2021, BusyLamp was acquired by Onit
- On 3 November, 2021, Brightflag acquired Joinder, a corporate record keeping system
- On 1 December, 2021, Integrum, a health, safety and environment platform was acquired by Mitratech
- On 16 December, 2021, Continuity, a GRC provider, was acquired by Mitratech
- On 17 December, 2021, Bottomline Technologies, a business payment conglomerate and owner of Legal-X, was acquired by Thoma Bravo
- On 11 January, 2022, SecureDocs was acquired by Onit
- On 19 January, 2022, Quovant was acquired by Mitratech
Acquisition of InvoicePrep
I read today that InvoicePrep, a legal ebilling outsourcing and invoice compliance review provider based in Westport CT, has been acquired by Frontline Managed Services. Frontline, based in Atlanta, provides administrative, financial and IT managed services to law firms. Sounds like a good fit!
doeLEGAL Acquired
Questel, a globally-based IP management solution with headquarters in Paris, has acquired doeLEGAL, the last of the original matter management and ebilling companies from the 1990’s that remained under original ownership. doe has been successfully expanding their global footprint over the past couple of years. Our hope is that this acquisition will accelerate their global client base and continue the family-owned business’ practice of delivering excellent client service. You can read the press release here.
Acquisitions and New Offerings
It is conference season and with that comes news of acquisitions and new products.
Wolters Kluwer ELM has acquired CLM Matrix, a contract management platform, filling in a gap in their product offering.
Onit has acquired SimpleLegal, a law department-focused ELM system.
Also in the news is a new law firm billing program, Accurate Legal Billing. It is in the vein of other systems recently in the news that purports to produce bills that comply with client guidelines.
Look on our Law Department and Law Firm Resource Room pages for links to each of these products
Datacert Acquired
In yet another blow to the shrinking gene pool of EBMM solutions available in the marketplace, it was reported yesterday that Wolters Kluwer has acquired the remaining shares of Third Coast Holdings, Inc., whose holdings include the Datacert Passport EBMM system. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval.
WK is the owner of CT Corporation and therefore the corporate parent of TyMetrix, another leading EBMM vendor system. Both companies have been staunch competitors in the ELM marketpace.
CT Corporation acquired Tripoint in 2005 and within a few years the system disappeared from the EBMM landscape. It will be very interesting to see how this acquisition evolves.