mergers and acquisitions

E-discovery giant Epiq has its eyes northward, announcing today the acquisition of Canadian e-discovery and litigation support firm H&A eDiscovery.

Epiq says that H&A's consulting and services across the EDRM, including identification, collection, processing, hosting, filtering and project management, complements its own preexisting Canadian business, where the company provides its own suite of e-discovery solutions, data breach response, information governance services and consulting. H&A also has specializations in areas such as forensics and paper discovery, which Epiq previously had serviced from the U.S.

No financial details of the transaction have been made public. H&A will immediately be folded into the Epiq brand, according to the company. Epiq will integrate H&A into its processes over the next several months, but for now, H&A clients will continue to deal with their existing teams and contacts.

Carla Swansburg, vice president & general manager of Epiq Canada, told Legaltech News that Epiq sees the Canadian market as a lucrative one that is growing and evolving. Through the acquisition, Epiq particularly hopes to better serve areas outside of Toronto, notably the growing market of Western Canada.

She added, “While we work with many of the large law firms and in-house teams in Canada, the market here has a significant number of smaller firms and smaller in-house teams, managing smaller matters.”

Swansburg said there was little overlap in the two companies' user bases, making the fit a natural one. The deal allows for more flexibility and options for both previous Epiq customers as well as H&A customers that now have access to the full global Epiq suite.

“The Canadian market is different in the sense that it is smaller, and litigations are not as large as in the U.S.,” she explained. “We need to be able to provide our services to a large number of smaller clients. However, the global footprint is very helpful to many of our Canadian clients, and we can take advantage of world-class expertise in all facets of e-discovery—talent and expertise Epiq offers that others cannot match.”

Epiq is no stranger to Canadian M&A, having previously acquired Bruneau Group, a Canadian settlement administrator, in July 2018. M&A activity also is something that the industry might see more of from Epiq: New CEO David Dobson told Legaltech News in January that he was making international growth, particularly outside North America, a priority.

“I think we can bring the assets and knowledge that we've developed in markets like the U.S. and North America and apply it to emerging markets—in Asia predominantly—and be a step ahead of our competitors,” Dobson said.