According to The Verge, officials were given the green light to use predictive coding software to sift through mountains of data involved in the deal between US giant Anheuser-Busch InBev NV and Mexican outfit Grupo Modelo SAB.
A Wall Street Journal report adds that the work has typically fallen to armies of contract or temporary lawyers who earn in the region of $25 to $40 an hour, according to industry experts.
Automated process
The programme, developed by Chicago software group kCura, was trained by lawyers to recognise relevant materials. According to the report, it convinced US authorities of its ability to take over the process and was therefore allowed to do so, potentially saving millions of dollars.
Paul Hastings partner Carl Walworth expressed doubts over the automated process in comments made to the Journal, suggesting that reviewing documents manually is a vital stage in familiarising oneself with a case. Mr Walworth said: ‘How will we substitute that function of learning from the documents when you're using predictive
coding?’
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