On November 12, we held a practical seminar «AI in M&A deals». At the seminar, we analyzed in detail how artificial intelligence is changing the M&A landscape and highlighted two key aspects:
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Applied aspect: practical tools and technical challenges of using AI in M&A transactions; and
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Legal aspect: changes in approaches to due diligence and transactional documentation resulting from the use or creation of AI solutions by the acquired business.
Anna Maksimenko, Partner at KKMP, noted that the rapid development of AI is not only becoming an integral part of legal practice, but is also transforming the business environment. This challenge has become the basis for the development of KKMP's LegalTech area and the creation of its own technological solutions
As part of the applied aspect, Kirill Dyakov, Legal Operations Officer at MWS AI, presented international and Russian trends in the use of AI in M&A transactions. Kirill gave illustrative statistics of the first Deloitte study on the use of generative artificial intelligence in M&A transactions. Kirill noted that abroad AI is used at all stages of transactions, while in Russia the practice is only emerging. Kirill also showed examples of the most popular AI tools that are already actively used around the world to conduct legal due diligence and prepare transactional documentation.
Sergey Polyanin, IT Director of KKMP, raised the issues of technical risks, confidentiality and security when working with AI. Sergey explained why anonymizing documents before sending them to external LLMs does not guarantee confidentiality and why we invested in specialized hardware to run LLMs in the back-end. He shared what AI models and how we are already using in our work. Sergey also highlighted that LLM is a technically complex tool that is vulnerable to external attacks and special attention should be paid to security and privacy issues.
As for the legal aspect, Elena Polevaya, Senior Lawyer of KKMP, highlighted what risks arise at all stages from the creation of AI solutions to the use of generation results. Violations at any stage may entail property losses and reputational risks. Among the main areas of legal due diligence in M&A transactions, she emphasized the verification of rights to the AI model itself and the results of its generation, the legality of training data collection, the assessment of AI compensation processes and control over decisions made by AI.
Maxim Kuleshov, Managing Partner and Head of M&A Practice at KKMP, noted that today AI is an effective tool for technical assistance to lawyers, but not a substitute for a lawyer to analyze, assess risks or prepare documents. He also elaborated on how the use of AI in an acquired company affects the transaction documentation, and what provisions should be made to protect the buyer's interests.
The seminar provoked a lively discussion: participants actively discussed AI compliance and ethics issues and shared practical aspects.
Thank you all for your participation! We look forward to seeing you at our next events.
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During the seminar we conducted a survey on the use of artificial intelligence in the practice of our participants. We invite you to take part in the survey as well.
