LegalTech VDR First Introduced in Chemical and Materials Industry M&A: Supporting Controlled Sharing of Formulation/Evaluation Data and AI-Powered Organization of Decision Materials

LegalTech Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and President: Tomoyuki Hirai) announced that LegalTech VDR has been first introduced in the M&A domain of the chemical and materials industry. This implementation combines controlled sharing of highly confidential information, such as formulation/prescription-related documents and test evaluation data, with AI-powered organization of decision-making materials.

*According to our research. This is the first introduction in the chemical and materials industry for M&A information governance and preliminary decision material organization, combining controlled sharing and AI-driven issue structuring.

M&A in the chemical and materials industry requires handling diverse information, including product specifications, material properties, formulation/prescription-related documents, test evaluation data, customer adoption status, manufacturing conditions, and contract-related documents. However, this information is highly confidential and cannot be uniformly shared with all internal and external stakeholders. Since different parties such as business divisions, corporate planning, R&D, legal, finance, and external advisors need to review different information, a sharing design based on controlled access is required.

**General sharing methods tend to be burdensome for organizing and controlling each deal.**

In M&A for the chemical and materials industry, the points to be confirmed vary widely for each acquisition candidate. For example, while business divisions and R&D want to check material performance, application development, mass production suitability, and customer adoption records, legal departments need to confirm contractual restrictions, intellectual property, and confidential information management status, and finance departments need to verify profitability and investment recovery potential. To advance deals while organizing these points for each stakeholder, simply storing files is not enough.

With email attachments or general storage, folder organization per deal, adjustment of sharing scope, version control, and tracking of viewing status often depend on manual efforts by staff. The burden of summarizing necessary documents and issues before management meetings can also be significant. Particularly when comparing multiple material groups or application-specific developments, it is easy for important documents and comparison points to be scattered, making decision material organization time-consuming.

**Operations supported by LegalTech VDR**

LegalTech VDR supports the following preliminary processes in M&A for the chemical and materials industry:

* Organization of confidential document sharing environments for each candidate deal. * Access control based on stakeholder roles, such as business divisions, corporate planning, R&D, legal, finance, and external advisors. * Management of viewing logs and audit trails. * AI-powered document organization, issue structuring, and comparative analysis. * Organization of decision-making materials before management meetings. * Information organization when comparing multiple deals or material groups.

This makes it easier to proceed with information sharing and decision material organization in a controlled manner to advance deals.

**AI support for preliminary decision material organization**

LegalTech VDR uses AI to support the preliminary processes of organizing decision-making materials in M&A, such as organizing candidate deal documents, structuring issues, and comparative analysis. This is expected to reduce the time traditionally required for decision material organization by approximately 70%, from about 3 hours to about 1 hour.

Here, the target operations are not M&A as a whole, but rather the preliminary stages of organizing documents related to candidate deals, extracting key points for stakeholders to review, structuring comparison perspectives, and preparing preliminary drafts for meetings. The AI does not make the final acquisition decision itself; rather, it supports the organization of materials on the premise that humans or experts will make the decisions.

**Anticipated Use Cases**

**Initial review of acquisition candidate deals** Share business overview documents, material property documents, test evaluation data, key customer information, and contract-related documents with limited members to organize the issues to be confirmed for each deal.

**Detailed evaluation phase** Share only necessary documents with stakeholders including R&D, legal, finance, and external advisors, with controlled access. Facilitate tracking who has reviewed which documents and manage audit trails required for deal progress.

**Preparation before management meetings** Organize critical issues, comparison points, and reviewed documents for each candidate deal to prepare preliminary decision-making materials for management judgment.

**Comparative review of multiple deals** When concurrently reviewing multiple acquisition candidate deals, organize documents and issues based on aspects such as material performance, application development, customer adoption, contract terms, and profitability, creating a state that facilitates easy comparison.

**Strengthening value proposition in chemical and materials industry M&A**

LegalTech Inc. positions LegalTech VDR not merely as a confidential document sharing tool, but as a foundational platform supporting information governance and preliminary decision material organization in M&A for the chemical and materials industry. Moving forward, the company will strengthen its information dissemination tailored to specific use cases for M&A and business restructuring in the chemical and materials industry. It will also organize usage contexts based on applications and technical characteristics, such as high-performance materials, resins, films, electronic materials, and battery materials, to propose more concrete solutions.

**Supplement**

LegalTech VDR's AI functions support document organization, issue structuring, comparative analysis, and decision material organization in the preliminary stages of M&A cases, and do not make final acquisition, legal, financial, or management decisions.