STRATEGY: Searching for contracts, agreements, standalone or appended documents – Best practices

STRATEGY: Searching for contracts, agreements, standalone or appended documents – Best practices

Contracts and agreements can be filed, or even misfiled, under several different document categories.  The same applies to many other document types including, but not limited to, articles of incorporation, company charters, fairness opinions, interim orders, expert opinions, etc..  To do an exhaustive search for any document type that:
  1. could be filed into numerous unpredictable categories, or that
  2. could either be an attachment to large document such as a management information circular, or else
  3. could be filed as a standalone document in a fairly random category or SEDAR description
...follow the steps in the video or the article below.





Contracts and Agreements Search String

arrangement agreement w/20 appendi* or schedul* or annex* or exhibit* or  xfirstword

Replace “arrangement agreement” in the above search sting with the name of the type of agreement or other document you are looking for:
  1. arrangement agreement* w/20 appendi* or schedule* or annex* or exhibit* or  xfirstword
  2. fairness Opinion* w/20 appendi* or schedule* or annex* or exhibit* or  xfirstword
  3. articles of incorporation* w/20 appendi* or schedule* or annex* or exhibit* or  xfirstword


Video: Finding Contracts, Agreements, Standalone or Appended Documents

  


Searching for contracts, agreements, standalone or appended documents - Step by Step

  1. Copy and paste the above search string into the full text search bar
  2. Your full text search bar now contains: arrangement agreement w/20 appendi* or schedul* or annex* or exhibit* or  xfirstword
  3. Replace arrangement agreement in your search with whichever document type you're trying to find (eg - "purchase and sale agreement", "articles of incorporation", "fairness opinion", etc.)
  4. Decide if you are looking for standalone documents, or appended documents, or both and continue with the appropriate strategy below

Standalone Documents Only:

  1. If looking for standalone documents only, limit your search to this string: arrangement agreement w/20 xfirstword
  2. Decide if you want to limit your search to certain document categories or search across all filing categories
    1. "Appropriate" or "prescribed" document categories only search:
      1. If you only want results from the [Material Contracts & Agreements] document category (which contains only standalone documents and no appended documents), chose this category in ~Document Category~
        1. [Material Contracts & Agreements] searches all of the *appropriate* or *expected* categories into which filers can be expected to file contracts and agreements, including [Material contracts], [Material documents], and [Other]
        2. [Material Contracts & Agreements] will not find *all* standalone agreements since agreements can be filed into any SEDAR description (not only the ones indexed under [Material Contracts & Agreements]) but it will find all of them that are filed into a contract-related description
    2. *All categories* search:
    3. To do an exhaustive search for *all* standalone agreements, regardless of which description they're filed under, remove all ~Document Category~ values and search against all document categories (by leaving this criteria blank)
  3. Add a date range selection in ~Filing Date~ to get less than 1000 results so you are looking at a complete result set (not a capped result set - Avantis caps search results at 1000 - see TROUBLESHOOTING: Missing Documents In My 1000+ Results)
  4. Click Search
  5. Avantis will only highlight where "arrangement agreement" (or whatever you are searching for) appears at the top of the document so will target cover and title pages
  6. For more detail, see the above video

Appended Documents Only:

  1. If looking for appended documents only, limit your search to this string: arrangement agreement w/20 appendi* or schedul* or annex* or exhibit*
  2. Decide if you want to limit your search to certain document categories or search across all filing categories
    1. "Appropriate" or "prescribed" document categories only search:
      1. If you only want results from the document category you expect your target document to be appended to, you must know which document category likely contains the types of attachments you're hoping to find 
        1. For contracts and agreements, [Management Information Circular] is a popular document to find them attached to 
        2. [Management Information Circular] will not find *all* attached agreements since agreements can be attached to any SEDAR description (not only [Management Information Circular]) but it will find all of them that are attached to management information circulars
    2. *All categories* search:
      1. To do an exhaustive search for *all* attached/appended agreements, remove all ~Document Category~ values and search against all document categories (by leaving this criteria blank)
  3. Add a date range selection in ~Filing Date~ to get less than 1000 results so you are looking at a complete result set (not a capped result set - Avantis caps results at 1000 - see TROUBLESHOOTING: Missing Documents In My 1000+ Results)
  4. Click Search
  5. Avantis will only highlight where "arrangement agreement" (or whatever you are searching for) appears near to the words "appendix", "schedule", "annex" or "exhibit" and you will be scanning your results for Table of Contents mentions that have lots of dots and page numbers near them, such as in the below image:
  6. For more detail, see the above video

Both Appended and Standalone Documents:

  1. If looking for both appended and standalone documents, do not limit your search but use the whole search string: arrangement agreement w/20 appendi* or schedul* or annex* or exhibit* or xfirstword
  2. Decide if you want to limit your search to certain document categories or search across all filing categories
    1. "Appropriate" or "prescribed" document categories only search:
      1. APPENDED DOCUMENTS: If you only want results from the document category you expect your target appended/attached document to be appended to, you must know which document category likely contains the types of attachments you're hoping to find 
        1. For Arrangement Agreements, this would be [Management Information Circular] 
          1. This will not get all appended arrangement agreements, but only those appended to management information proxy circulars
          2. Searching for other types of documents beyond arrangement agreements will require you to know which documents they are likely to be appended to, or else to use the "all categories" search below
      2. STANDALONE DOCUMENTS: In addition, you'll want to add the appropriate standalone document categories to your search
        1. For Arrangement Agreements, this would be [Material Contracts & Agreements]
          1. This will not get all standalone arrangement agreements, but only those filed into predictable standalone document descriptions
          2. Searching for other types of documents beyond arrangement agreements will require you to know which descriptions they are likely to be filed under, or else to use the "all categories" search below
    2. *All categories* search:
      1. To do an exhaustive search for *all* attached/appended or standalone agreements, remove all ~Document Category~ values and search against all document categories (by leaving this criteria blank)
  3. Add a date range selection in ~Filing Date~ to get less than 1000 results so you are looking at a complete result set (not a capped result set - Avantis caps results at 1000 - see TROUBLESHOOTING: Missing Documents In My 1000+ Results)
  4. Click Search
  5. Avantis will only highlight:
    1. Where "arrangement agreement" (or whatever you are searching for) appears near to the words "appendix", "schedule", "annex" or "exhibit" and you will be scanning your results for Table of Contents mentions that have lots of dots and page numbers near them, such as in the below image:

    2. Where "arrangement agreement" (or whatever you are searching for) appears at the top of the document so will target cover and title pages of standalone documents
  6. For more detail, see the above video

Advantages and disadvantages of searching all document categories

1.      Advantage: It is the only comprehensive search because some contracts and agreements are filed in unexpected places and searching all Document Categories is the only way to catch them all

2.      Disadvantage: You will have more noise documents or documents that are not on point included with your results and this is a necessary tradeoff if we are attempting to make sure we’ve captured every relevant document

3.      Use Case: If you are tracking down a specific agreement and need to do a comprehensive search to find it this is the best strategy

4.      Use Case: If we are looking for every single instance of a type of agreement (rather than a sampling) this is the best strategy to use


Advantages and disadvantages of searching specific document categories

1.      Advantage: Gets the most targeted results with the least amount of noise or false hits

2.      Disadvantage: Although most agreements are filed under predictable document categories, a small amount aren’t and this strategy will always miss some amount of documents

3.      Use Case: If you are looking for a sampling of relevant documents but do not need to find every single instance of every such document, this is the best strategy


Searching agreement types that have “and” in their name

1.      If the agreement type you’re searching for has the word “and” in the name of the agreement, such as “Support and Voting Agreement” you need to write it in quotation marks to respect the name of it

2.      Simply tying support and voting agreement (without enclosing it in quotation marks) means you will get:

a.      Any mention of the word “support” in any context whatsoever, unrelated to agreements at all

b.      Mentions of “voting agreement”, unrelated to mentions of “support”

c.       The “and” in the above is a connector telling the Avantis to look for two separate conditions in one search and that they do not relate to each other in any way

d.      Putting the “and” inside quotation marks (“support and voting agreement”) tells Avantis that the “and” is just a word in the title of the agreement and is not a connector giving any special instructions

e.      See the above video for a full explanation

 



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