RELX Group Enters into an Agreement to Acquire Doctrine

Proposed acquisition will accelerate the delivery of enhanced authoritative legal AI workflow solutions across France and key European jurisdictions.

LONDON / PARIS — RELX Group, which owns LexisNexis® Legal & Professional, a global leader in information, analytics and AI-powered legal workflow solutions, today announced that it has entered into a put option agreement to acquire Doctrine, a leading legal AI platform for legal professionals across Continental Europe.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Paris, Doctrine combines a comprehensive corpus of case law, legislation and regulatory content for civil law jurisdictions with a suite of AI-powered research, drafting and analytics tools. The platform is used daily by 27,000 legal professionals across France, Italy, Germany and Spain, including law firms ranging from solo practitioners to top-tier Anglo-American firms, multinational corporations and public entities, including French ministries, local authorities, and universities.

The proposed acquisition would accelerate the delivery of enhanced, trusted, intuitive and authoritative legal AI workflow solutions in France and across key European jurisdictions, including Germany, Spain and Italy and should assist customers to improve productivity and achieve better outcomes.

Doctrine and LexisNexis would provide legal professionals across Europe with end-to-end AI-powered legal workflows that span research, drafting and analyses, underpinned by trusted, authoritative content in their native language and legal tradition. Doctrine would continue to be led by its existing management team and would operate as part of RELX Group.

Sean Fitzpatrick, Chief Executive Officer, Global Legal, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, said:

“We are excited about the prospect of welcoming Doctrine, so that we can serve customers in France, across Europe, and beyond in even greater ways. Doctrine’s customer-centric innovation approach, powerful platform and expert talent complement LexisNexis’s global capabilities in authoritative legal AI workflow solutions, and we look forward to delivering even more value to customers.”

Guillaume Carrère, Chief Executive Officer of Doctrine, said:

“From the start, we have been obsessed with one thing: building cutting-edge AI solutions for legal professionals across Europe. Joining RELX is the natural next chapter for that mission. LexisNexis brings unparalleled depth of content, global reach and a shared conviction that AI, applied responsibly, will transform how legal work gets done. For our customers, this means faster access to a richer set of capabilities; for our team, it means joining a company that recognizes and will invest behind the technical and product excellence we have built. I want to thank every single person at Doctrine, as well as our partners at Summit Partners, whose conviction and support were instrumental at a defining stage of our journey.”

Johannes Grefe, Managing Director, and Chris Bon, Partner at Summit Partners, said:

“When we partnered with Guillaume and the Doctrine team in 2023, we backed our conviction that technology and AI would fundamentally reshape how legal professionals work and that Doctrine had the team, the technology and the content depth to lead that transformation in Europe. Since then, the company has nearly tripled its recurring revenue, expanded into three additional European markets and shipped sophisticated AI capabilities to legal professionals. Joining RELX is a strong outcome for the company and meaningful validation of what Guillaume and the team have built. We are proud to have been part of the journey.”

The put option agreement provides RELX Group with a binding commitment to acquire Doctrine, exercisable following completion of the information and consultation process with Doctrine’s employee representative bodies in accordance with French law. The parties expect to enter into definitive share purchase documentation following the conclusion of that consultation. Completion of the envisaged transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including foreign direct investment clearances and other applicable regulatory approvals. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed. The two companies will continue to operate separately in the interim.

Raymond James served as financial advisor to Summit Partners, and Latham & Watkins served as legal advisors. Scotto Partners advised Doctrine’s management. Freshfields acted as legal advisors to RELX.

About Doctrine

Doctrine is a leading legal AI and intelligence platform for civil law jurisdictions in Europe. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Paris, Doctrine combines a comprehensive corpus of case law, legislation and regulatory content with AI-powered research, drafting and analytics tools. The platform is used daily by legal professionals at law firms, corporates and public institutions across France, Italy, Germany and Spain. For more information, visit www.doctrine.fr.

About LexisNexis® Legal & Professional

As part of RELX, LexisNexis® Legal & Professional provides AI-powered legal, regulatory, business information, analytics, and workflows that help customers increase their productivity, improve decision-making, achieve better outcomes, and advance the rule of law around the world. As a digital pioneer, the company was the first to bring legal and business information online with its Lexis® and Nexis® services. LexisNexis Legal & Professional serves customers in more than 150 countries with 11,900 employees worldwide. It has a long tradition in the French market, grounded in the ownership of JurisClasseur since 1993.

About RELX

RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. RELX serves customers in more than 180 countries and territories and has offices in about 40 countries. It employs more than 37,000 people, around 40% of whom are in North America. The shares of RELX PLC, the parent company, are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RELX. The total market capitalization is approximately £48bn, €55.4bn, $64.9bn.

*Note: Current market capitalization can be found at http://www.relx.com/investors

About Summit Partners

Summit Partners is a leading growth-focused investment firm. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and, since the firm’s founding in 1984, has invested in more than 550 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. These companies have completed more than 175 public equity offerings, and more than 250 have been acquired through strategic mergers and sales. For more information, visit www.summitpartners.com.

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