Nine investment banks currently use a web portal pilot to access fully searchable legal updates that are uploaded and indexed by Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance (CC), Freshfields, Linklaters and Simmons & Simmons.

It offers a centralised know-how resource to the banks involved (ABN Amro, Barclays Capital, CSFB, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS), saving them the trouble of logging on to several individual websites or diligently classifying and filing all incoming updates.