IN THIS ISSUE
Election crimes against the web - TFB buys Avenue - Olswang helps Big Brother - Tikit floats for £13 million - Midware makes a third acquisition - Latest dotcom lawsuits - Litigation support systems news - Defend you .BIZ rights - international law firm awards - Legal publishers get XP Smart Tags - Events Diary - Next issue - 14.06.2001

UK ELECTION 2001 - CRIMES AGAINST THE WEB
By the time you read this, the UK 2001 general election will be all over bar the counting so with great pleasure we can announce that the winner of the meta tags piracy award is the Labour Party web site at www.labour.org.uk. Its meta tags include multiple references to just about every party in the election, including the Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru. William Hague also receives several meta tag name checks. Yes, you are right, there have been a number of court cases both in the UK and United States where the mis-use of meta tags has provided the basis for passing off and trademark infringement lawsuits. The Conservative Party can take consolation from the fact its web site home page scored the fastest average download times - just 11.5 seconds. And the Liberal Democrats' site was the most reliable, clocking a 100 percent availability score, according to the internet quality measurement agency Qualiope.com.

TFB BUYS AVENUE
Technology for Business Plc (TFB), today (7 June) announced it had become the UK's largest legal IT solutions provider with its purchase of Avenue Legal Systems. The acquisition of Avenue, which is backed by Northern Venture Managers and the Bank of Scotland, is the second by TFB inside two months following the purchase of Scottish legal specialist, CB Systems, in April.

TFB and its corporate team (which includes Osborne Clarke and KPMG) says it is looking for further opportunities to consolidate its position as the UK's leading legal solution provider, with a combined turnover of over £12 million and a total client base approaching 1,000 medium-to-large practices. (Axxia reported a turnover of £10.3 million for its last trading year, AIM made £4.2 million and Tikit £9.3 million - see also Tikit float story.)

Commenting on the deal TFB managing director Simon Hill said: "The takeover of Avenue positions TFB as the premier player in the UK's legal software market. The Avenue purchase is important for us because the legal software market has been in existence for 20 years, but no single supplier has established a market dominance until today. TFB is continuing to actively pursue further acquisition targets both in the UK and abroad - including the United States - to consolidate its position as a market leader."

Hill also said the opportunity to purchase Avenue not only provided TFB with the ideal platform from which to dominate the market but the positive synergies created between the two companies presented Avenue as a good fit for TFB. Both companies possess similar core strengths and skills, while their products share common origins. Avenue's Solomon software and TFB's Senior Partner II product were developed by the same design team and both Avenue and TFB currently offer Microsoft Windows-based Practice Management solutions with thin client options which provide easier to manage systems, particularly over wide area networks.

The purchase price is not being disclosed but Hill told Legal News Media that the deal would not involve any redundancies. TFB's medium term plan is to develop a common successor system that will combine the best elements of current Avenue, CB and TFB systems. Users of the latest version of Avenue's Wisdom product will be entitled to a free upgrade to this new system however TFB is also committed to supporting users of the older Avenue Solomon legacy system for at least the next two years. There will be a full report in the next issue of Legal Technology Insider.

OLSWANG HELPS BIG BROTHER GO INTERACTIVE
It has been described as the second most important public election in the UK this week. Will it be Penny or Helen who becomes the first contestant to be voted out of the Big Brother house?

The Big Brother "enhanced" television service is based on technology licensed from Sky (and used by Sky for its own interactive services). The service enables E4 viewers (watching the programme on interactive digital television) to choose from four live television feeds being broadcast from the Big Brother house and to vote for who they want to see evicted. Votes are cast via the modem which is built into digital satellite set top boxes, with 5p of the 25p call charge per vote being donated to charity and the balance split between Sky and Channel 4.

UK law firm Olswang negotiated a series of agreements on behalf of Channel 4 with Sky and SSSL (a Sky subsidiary) to enable Channel 4 to broadcast interactive services on digital satellite. Channel 4 entered into an Application Signing Agreement (an agreement which all broadcasters must sign in order to provide interactive services to satellite viewers) and two further agreements under which Sky developed the Big Brother interactive application and will provide the infrastructure to enable Channel 4 to provide the online voting service. Olswang partner John Enser and assistants Matthew Phillips and Russell Johnstone advised Channel 4 on the interactive arrangements.

TIKIT FLOATS FOR £13 MILLION
The UK legal IT services and consultancy company Tikit Group plc has floated on the London AIM stock exchange. The placing, on 4 June, with institutional and other investors raises £3.4 million and the 115p share issue price capitalises the company at £13 million. Addleshaw Booth & Co's corporate finance team, led by partner Keith Johnston and assisted by Simon Masters, Jane Slater and Sanjeev Sharma, advised Tikit on the flotation.

AUSTRALIA - MIDWARE MAKES THIRD ACQUISITION IN THREE MONTHS
Publicly listed Australian technology company Midware is continuing its acquisition strategy with the purchase of IMAC Support Services Pty Ltd, a large Brisbane software and consulting business. This is the third company buyout by Midware in as many months, having recently purchased Law Ledger and Client Server Computing, and gives the company direct presence in the three key geographic markets of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Midware say the deal makes the company a key competitor of Solution 6 in the legal market.

IMAC's founder Ian McCaskill will remain with Midware, becoming the group's chief technology office, focusing on developing systems platforms and maintaining product development. IMAC has also developed an internet based document assembly and collaboration software system called Webdocs which Midware managing director Mark Flack believes "has the potential to create global opportunities for Midware".

LATEST DOTCOM LAWSUITS
The video games software developer EIDOS, best known for the adventures of Lara Croft in its Tomb Raider series, has been threatened with a $5 billion lawsuit arising of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in the United States, when two students shot and killed 13 people/ Parents of the murder victims claim that playing video games caused the shootings by "making violence pleasurable and disconnected from reality" The lawsuit cites the Eidos Final Fantasy game. Other defendants named include Sega, Sony and Paramount.

The Wall Street bank CSFB is being sued by creditors of the collapsed internet business MORTGAGE.COM. The move follows allegations that the bank rigged the way sharers were allocated at the time of the company's flotation in August 1999. A spokesman for CSFB said "We believe these allegations have no merit. We intended to vigorously defend ourselves.

MARKETWATCH.COM INC told its shareholders at its recent AGM that it faced five securities class action lawsuits accusing the company, its current or former officers and directors and its financial advisers of alleged improper practices at the time of its January 1999 IPO. The company said it believes the lawsuits have no merit, should not have a material adverse effect on its current business and intends to vigorously defend them.

LITIGATION SUPPORT SYSTEMS NEWS
APPLIED DISCOVERY INC, the developer of internet based electronic discovery solutions, has introduced a new redaction capability, allowing lawyers to select and extract text and graphics from electronic documents. The company says the technology can be crucial in preventing the disclosure of trade secrets, intellectual property and other privileged information. Regina Chepalis, vice president sales & marketing for Applied Discovery says the redaction feature is unique because it allows users to permanently remove information from electronic documents, rather than just applying an overlay to temporarily conceal privileged information. www.applieddiscovery.com

And, the CASESOFT division of DecisionQuest has launched the CaseSoft Suite. The new suite combines in one package the whole range of CaseSoft litigation software tools, including CaseMap, TimeMap, NoteMap and TextMap. www.casesoft.com

ACT BEFORE 9 JULY TO DEFEND YOUR IP RIGHTS
E-Commerce Law & Policy newsletter, in conjunction with trademark and intellectual property specialists Willoughby & Partners is holding a briefing meeting next week to explain the procedure for claiming one of new .biz domain names, which come into effect on 9 July, and how the special pre-launch disputes procedure operates. The event takes place between 6:00 and 8:00pm on Thursday 14 June at the Park Lane Hotel in London. The price is £95 + VAT.

Cecile Park Publishing, the publishers of the E-Commerce Law & Policy newsletter, have also launched a sister publication - the E-commerce Law Reports. These will be published six times a year and the first year's subscription (£225) also includes access to the online version of the reports. The reports' editorial board includes John Enser of Olswang, Dawn Osborne of Willoughby & Partners and Eduardo Ustaran of Berwin Leighton Paisner.

INTERNATIONAL LAW FIRM AWARDS
The publishers of the Chambers Global Directory have announced the winners of their first International Law Firm of the Year Awards. In the Western European section, Bird & Bird won the communications law firm of the year category, while Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati won in the North American communications firm category. Mallesons Stephen Jacques picked up the award for the Australasian law firm of the year.

US PUBLISHERS OPT FOR XP SMART TAGS
The US offices of LexisNexis and the West Group have simultaneously announced the integration of Microsoft Office XP Smart Tag dynamic data recognition technology within their respective online services. LexisNexis users will now be able to link directly to the LexisNexis service from a person, address or case name written in a Microsoft Office XP Word document. While West customers using that company's new WestCiteLink 3.0 application will be able to follow a case or statute citation directly from a Word document to the corresponding document on Westlaw. There will initially be no charge for downloading the WestCiteLink software from www.westlaw.com.citelink

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