High tech law firm launches online knowledge solution for asset managers

Global News

26
Jun
2018

Editor

Zeidler Legal Services, a technology-driven law firm, today announced its launch of Global Knowledge Hub, a new high-tech service for asset managers to keep up-to-date with legal and regulatory requirements for registering and marketing funds across borders.

Arne Zeidler, Managing Director and Founder of Zeidler Legal Services said, “We see this as an entirely new way to provide legal services to our clients. The Global Knowledge Hub distils all the relevant questions, which we have received from our clients over the past years and makes the answers available in an easy to understand and practically usable way. 

“The traditional model of writing e-mails back and forth and charging hourly rates to provide answers for repeating questions are over. Our content is provided in a modern layout and design and can be viewed on any mobile device.” 

Global Knowledge Hub content has been drafted from scratch, it is available in a clearly defined scope and qualifies as structured data, which means it is a perfect use case for an AI-based chat bot. Clients are able to chat with the bot to retrieve answers and can seamlessly switch to a lawyer from the dedicated Global Knowledge Hub team, all from the same dialogue box. The bot and lawyer support are part of the subscription fee and are not charged separately.

The Global Knowledge Hub content is backed by Zeidler Legal Services in its capacity as a law firm and it assumes full liability for the content provided online, via the bot or its lawyers.

Zeidler continued, “We felt that we had to provide an alternative solution for smaller and medium-sized asset managers, who simply do not want to pay for the highly priced tools currently on the market.”

Zeidler is uniquely positioned to develop a tool like this as it has focussed on the legal side of international marketing of investment funds for many years. It is one of the very few firms who possess such detailed global legal knowledge within one team. One quarter of its staff are software developers, allowing it to provide legal and technology-based solutions out of one hand.

The content for each country is structured in the exact same way. The topics covered include (but are not limited to):

• The process of registering a UCITS, including timelines and fees;
• Local agency requirements;
• Continuing obligations and disclosure requirements;
• Requirements for marketing materials (e.g. factsheets, marketing presentations);
• Information on the required marketing permissions; and
• Definition of marketing and reverse solicitation rules.

The jurisdictions include: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Further jurisdictions for the Global Knowledge Hub will be released in batches over the next few months and will include South Africa, Australia, Singapore and Switzerland. Zeidler’s goal is to cover 45 jurisdictions for UCITS and AIFs.