Workshare Transact: facilitating CP process in banking transactions

Workshare Transact is an online transaction management application which runs deal checklists to create efficiency, run productivity and improve the communication between the parties, especially for cross-border transactions. It allows to reduce time on the administrative management of the CPs/closing process and speeds up the execution process. It can also be used in the syndication process, as the relevant CP documents can be shared with syndication partners by one click deciding which documents shall be visible and which not.

The advantage for the parties using this tool is less email traffic and ability to have a clear view of status at any time and even to filter the status for only outstanding items or items assigned for a party’s approval. It can be tracked who made the latest changes and what has been added by whom. The application also enables versioning of agreements (incl. producing the compares), exchanging signature pages and creating closing bibles from the final/ executed versions. This is in particular helpful in connection with transactions with a huge amount of CPs which need to monitored.

Once a Workshare account has been created with an email address the relevant party can see a list of deals he/she has been invited to. The notification settings can be personalized and one can choose how often to receive an email about deal activity. The tool differs between members and admin rights (access to more features), further the owner/admin can restrict access to individual items (e.g. legal opinions) and prevent from seeing the item’s name, status, files or other information.

Simmons & Simmons LLP has a non-disclosure agreement with Litera Transact to keep the data safe and confidential on this cloud-hosted application. Files are stored in AWS (Amazon Web Services) data centers maintained by leading service providers that offer the highest levels of security.

The challenge we have faced in previous transactions managed with Workshare Transact is that not all of the deal participants joined the tool or were not actively using it by uploading/ accessing the documents so that in the end a lot of documents had to be shared via email again. To maximise efficiency the tool works best, if all parties use the tool actively. Based on our positive experience with Workshare Transact in the last years we would like to encourage you to choose this solution, which can save time and expenses for the transaction management in future deals. We are happy to assist you with any questions in this regard and, if necessary, run a test module with you.