He is literally the only writer out there these days that will bother to document the final agonising death throes of legal publishing at the hands of the moneymen, multinationals et al
In his piece for SLAW
He details the brave but probably misguided Swedish publishing outfit the Karnov Group, and their attempt to enter the world of the blue meanies
Robert writes
It is difficult not to be a little disappointed when good law publishing businesses are used and passed around among the money-men, never finding the protection of metaphorical safe, responsible and loving homes and families. It seems different, and less appealing than the scenario in which smaller publishers are acquired and integrated into larger ones, giving the acquirees access to better funding, technology and expertise, albeit amid the inevitable dark, maybe Skandi-Noir aspects of integrations of that kind as well; perhaps, with occasional exceptions, such as Lexis Nexis’ (RELX) recent acquisition of Belgian-founded contract drafting company, Henchman https://legaltechnology.com/2024/06/03/breaking-news-lexis-acquires-henchman-to-meet-one-of-customers-top-requests-searchable-internal-data/, that era is simply over. Still, I look forward to seeing at least the occasional rising star, of which Karnov might still be one, as their acquisition, for up to 447m Swedish krona, of the IP rights to Denmark’s J.H. Schultz legal content, as well as related customer obligations would indicate, https://news.cision.com/karnov-group/r/karnov-group-acquires-carved-out-legal-information-business-of-schultz-in-denmark,c3999407, as well as vLex and one or two others expanding by way or merger and acquisition. They might even put their hedge fund, majority gambler-owned days behind them, perhaps as public, or better still, employee-owned companies.
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