Consilio to Acquire Lawyers On Demand and SYKE

August 14, 2023
Consilio, global leader in legal technology solutions and enterprise legal services, has come to an agreement to acquire Lawyers On Demand (LOD), a pioneer in flexible legal talent, and SYKE, a premier legal technology consultancy headquartered in the UK. This acquisition will extend Consilio’s Enterprise Legal Services (ELS) business to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia, expand its current UK business, and further amplify Consilio’s overall global presence. Since its creation in 2007, LOD has built a community of more than 4,500 legal practitioners providing clients with on-demand expertise to meet clients’ needs. The practitioners include lawyers, legal engineers, legal operations consultants, paralegals and risk & compliance professionals across 25 countries. LOD’s clients include 27 members of the FTSE 100 and 54 members of the ASX 200. In 2021, LOD began its relationship with SYKE, Europe’s top legal technology consultancy driving legal system implementations, optimization and commercial contracting services. “The Flexible Talent market remains fragmented, and we continue to explore opportunities to create impactful solutions for legal teams, as they face an unprecedented amount of talent concerns as a result of historically high attrition rates, budgetary freezes and legal industry salary increases out of reach for many corporations,” said Andy Macdonald, Chief Executive Officer of Consilio. “This acquisition brings LOD’s and SYKE’s deep expertise in flexible legal talent and legal technology consulting onboard, while unlocking greater scale and capabilities for our clients,” Macdonald added. On the other hand, LOD Founder Simon Harper commented: “Consilio has a great story, as it has a history of bringing very strategic acquisitions into its fold to become the global leader in...

Europe-Asia Great Divide in Regulating the Digital Economy

July 26, 2023
FRENY PATEL The proliferation of the Internet and the critical role of technology players in our daily lives have regulators grappling with how best the digital economy should be regulated against the anti-competitive behaviour of large online platforms. Europe has taken the lead towards ex-ante regulations with the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”), which came into effect a little over a month ago on 2 May 2023. The DMA sets the ground rules on what is acceptable behaviour. The DMA is aimed at reining in ‘Big Tech’ and their alleged abuse of power, but is still a work in progress. Digital platforms, often identified as gatekeepers, have the tendency to adopt a winnertakes-all approach and monetize market data. The idea behind ex-ante regulations is to truncate the time period and intervene before the market is entrenched with one or two players. However, a Singapore-based policy director with a leading multinational digital platform recently voiced concerns and cautioned enforcers in the Asia Pacific region to tailor digital regulations according to local economies, given the far-reaching implementation costs of ex-ante rules and the overarching implications. Unlike the European Commission, most Asian enforcers are still sitting on the fence, deliberating on how digital economies should be regulated and whether ex-ante rules are the solution or even warranted. There is clearly a Europe-Asia great divide on how the digital economy should be regulated. Each inquiry requires more time and by the time authorities complete the investigations, reach a finding, and issue directives, the markets may irreversibly tip in favour of the leaders The debate on the need to relook at antitrust enforcement tools has...