vLex acquired minority shareholding in Irwin Law via share purchase agreement
Starting in October, legal information users such as firms and law schools will gain exclusive access to the entire Irwin Law E-Library collection on the vLex Justis legal research platform.
This is pursuant to a partnership between Irwin Law, Inc and vLex that comprises a service agreement for vLex to exclusively host Irwin Law’s products and a share purchase agreement for vLex to acquire a minority shareholding in Irwin Law, according to a news release from vLex.
These agreements will enable vLex users to access the full text of all the same materials that they could access on Irwin Law’s E-Library collection.
It also gives vLex users access to indexed information, through which they can search across vLex’s database of 120 million documents from more than 100 countries, including Canadian case law dating back to 1876 and indexed CANLII content. This access to indexed information will be for search purposes and display of results only, and not for accessing the full text.
“I am very pleased that we will be able to offer our E-Library on the vLex service, which I am sure will improve the experience of the users of our publications considerably,” said Jeffrey Miller, president of Irwin Law, in the press release.
The agreements between the two Canada-based legal information providers seek to establish a unique service for the Canadian law sector and elsewhere by providing access to an exclusive collection of legal books and journals.
The release also announced the appointment of Masoud Gerami, vLex’s managing director for global markets, to Irwin Law’s board of directors. vLex said that it would further expand its local Canadian team in line with the new initiative.
“These agreements will create new opportunities for growth and innovation, and I look forward to working with Jeff and his colleagues to offer exciting services to this community of users that we have known and served for many years,” Gerami said.
vLex, established over two decades ago, offers access to a comprehensive collection of legal information from more than 130 jurisdictions for the benefit of lawyers, firms, government departments and law schools worldwide. Its flagship vLex Justis platform integrates the content and features gained through its acquisition of Justis Publishing in March 2019. Irwin Law, founded in 1996, is Canada’s youngest law publisher.
