In a deal that will reshape the legal research and legal technology landscape on a global basis and threaten the longstanding “Wexis” legal research duopoly, the companies vLex and Fastcase today announced that they have merged into a single entity that they say will have the world’s largest subscriber base of lawyers and law firms and a legal research library of more than 1 billion documents from more than 100 countries.
As part of the merger, Oakley Capital, a major European private equity investor, which last September acquired majority ownership of vLex, and Bain Capital Credit, a global credit specialist with some $42 billion in assets under management, are investing an undisclosed amount in the combined business to expand its global reach and accelerate its development of artificial intelligence tools for the legal market.
Lluís Faus will become global CEO.
The combined entity will be called vLex Group and will be led by
