MOLTON and Link-D Law Firm Launch Strategic Alliance in Legal Due Diligence (DD) x Generative AI Domain

MOLTON Inc. (formerly a23s Inc.) (Location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, Attorney at Law (Japan/New York State, USA) Yasufumi Sakichi, hereinafter MOLTON), a domestic pioneer in contract/legal BPaaS and provider of corporate legal outsourcing services ALSP (Alternative Legal Service Provider) equipped with legal AI, offering the AI + Legal BPO service "Cloud Legal," has entered into a strategic alliance agreement with Link-D Law Firm (Location: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Attorney at Law: Hidetoshi Matsumura) in the field of legal due diligence (legal DD) for M&A.

Through this alliance, Link-D Law Firm will utilize MOLTON's legal DD platform to advance the sophistication of its services, including primary analysis of contracts, minutes, regulations, and registration-related documents in M&A cases, risk extraction, issue identification, creation of question lists and requests for additional documents, and support for DD report generation. MOLTON will support the DX of M&A and corporate legal practices in law firms through the provision of the legal DD platform's operating environment, implementation and operational support by AI engineers and attorneys, and continuous functional improvements based on feedback from attorneys using it in actual cases.

Moving forward, both parties aim to achieve both quality and efficiency in legal DD operations by combining the speed of information processing by generative AI with the expert judgment and practical knowledge possessed by law firms well-versed in M&A practices.

[Background of the Strategic Alliance]

Legal due diligence in M&A is a crucial process for understanding the risks related to contracts, organization/shares, permits, human resources, disputes, personal information/information security, etc., of the target company and reflecting them in transaction terms and contract negotiations. On the other hand, the need to scrutinize a large volume of documents within a limited timeframe, structure risks, and compile them into a report presents a significant challenge for both law firms and corporate legal departments in balancing expertise and processing capacity.

MOLTON has supported practical operations in areas such as contracts, legal operations, intellectual property, and compliance by combining generative AI with expert teams in legal, intellectual property, and compliance fields. In the area of legal DD for M&A, MOLTON is also working on the automatic generation of legal DD reports using AI and the generation of practical outputs, including risk analysis and SPA (Share Purchase Agreement) policy.

This strategic alliance with Link-D Law Firm is an initiative to utilize the legal DD platform as "practical infrastructure" that supports the advanced judgment of legal professionals, rather than AI replacing the judgment of attorneys. By streamlining information organization, initial analysis, issue extraction, and reporting in legal DD operations, both parties will contribute to accelerating decision-making and improving quality in M&A cases.

[Overview of the Alliance]

1. Provision of Legal DD Platform License MOLTON will provide Link-D Law Firm with the operating environment for the legal DD platform, which can be utilized for M&A legal DD operations. This will streamline tasks such as document organization, issue extraction, risk classification, and report generation support in the review of contracts, minutes, regulations, registration-related documents, and permit documents.

2. Implementation and Operational Support by AI Engineers and Attorneys MOLTON, through its specialized team including AI engineers and attorneys, will provide support for the implementation and utilization of the legal DD platform, prompt design, integration into practical workflows, and operational support for accuracy improvement. Specifically, it will connect AI utilization to on-site practices, taking into account the practical insights of "what information, at what granularity, and how to make it into decision-making material" in legal DD practice.

3. Feedback and Joint Improvement Based on Actual Cases Link-D Law Firm will provide MOLTON with feedback on improvement requests and quality evaluations obtained through practical use. MOLTON will then proceed with improvements to the legal DD platform's functions, output quality, and user experience based on this feedback. By reflecting the practical knowledge of law firms, the aim is to build a more practical legal DD support foundation.

4. Collaboration in PR and Knowledge Dissemination Both parties will disseminate knowledge regarding the practical application of legal DD x generative AI through joint announcements, interview articles/videos, seminars, etc. By combining the practical knowledge of law firms with MOLTON's generative AI implementation capabilities, they will widely share examples of AI utilization in the M&A and corporate legal fields.

[Main Application Areas of the Legal DD Platform]

· Primary analysis of contracts, minutes, regulations, etc., in M&A legal DD

· Extraction of issues such as important contracts, change of control clauses, termination clauses, non-compete obligations, and exclusivity rights

· Risk classification of shares/organization, permits, human resources, intellectual property, personal information/information security, litigation/disputes, etc.

· Support for creating lists of questions, requests for additional documents, and memos for confirmation

· Support for legal DD reports, executive summaries, and issue organization for SPA (Share Purchase Agreement) and transaction condition review

· Assistance with review, knowledge sharing, and junior training within law firms

[MOLTON Comment]

Legal DD in M&A is an extremely specialized task that supports important corporate decision-making. On the other hand, the need to scrutinize a large volume of documents in a short period and structure risks to reflect them in transaction terms places a significant burden on practitioners.

We are extremely pleased to be able to launch a strategic alliance with Link-D Law Firm. MOLTON aims to create an environment where attorneys can focus their expertise on higher value-added judgment, negotiation, and advice by combining the speed of AI with the judgment of legal professionals.

Through this alliance, we will further enhance the practical standards for AI utilization in the legal DD domain and work to build a new legal infrastructure that supports corporate M&A and investment decisions.

MOLTON Inc. Representative Director / Attorney at Law Yasufumi Sakichi

[Link-D Law Firm Comment]

In M&A practice, legal DD is a critical process directly linked to client decision-making. In recent years, as the business models, contractual relationships, data, intellectual property, and regulatory compliance of target companies have become more complex, the importance of rapidly and comprehensively grasping issues and presenting them clearly to clients has increased.

With this strategic alliance with MOLTON, we will incorporate document analysis, issue extraction, and reporting support using generative AI into our practice. While maintaining the quality of expert judgment by attorneys, we will build a faster, more effective, and efficient legal DD system and provide support that is even more closely aligned with our clients' needs.

Link-D Law Firm (https://link-d.jp/) Representative Attorney at Law Hidetoshi Matsumura

[About Cloud Legal / MOLTON's Legal AI Platform]

MOLTON's "Cloud Legal" is an ALSP (Alternative Legal Service Provider) for corporate legal outsourcing services, equipped with legal AI and a scaled team of attorneys, judicial scriveners, patent attorneys, administrative scriveners, social insurance labor consultants, and tax accountants. It is a legal cloud service that supports a wide range of corporate legal tasks, including legal checks/contract reviews, contract drafting, legal and labor consultations, intellectual property and tax consultations, internal regulation preparation/drafting, legal research on laws and precedents, advertising review/pharmaceuticals and medical device act checks, internal whistleblower hotlines (legal violations, harassment, etc.), support for board of directors/shareholder meetings and shareholder strategies, IPO preparation support, M&A legal affairs, and legal due diligence.

MOLTON combines generative AI implementation capabilities with specialized teams of attorneys, professionals, consultants, and engineers to provide support in areas such as contracts, legal operations, intellectual property, and compliance, emphasizing the balance of speed and quality.

[About MOLTON Inc.] MOLTON Inc. is a company that supports corporate decision-making and operational execution by combining generative AI implementation capabilities with the on-site knowledge of its expert team. It provides "Cloud Legal," an ALSP for corporate legal outsourcing services that is a contract/legal BPaaS type service equipped with legal AI, and supports practical operations in areas such as contracts, legal operations, intellectual property, and compliance, emphasizing the balance of speed and quality. Moving forward, starting from the corporate legal and intellectual property domains, it will expand its support scope to risk/governance and management consulting, providing implementation-oriented consulting that contributes to corporate value enhancement.

[About Link-D Law Firm] (URL https://link-d.jp/) Link-D Law Firm is a law firm that provides a wide range of legal services to domestic and international companies, focusing on M&A, corporate law, startup support, finance, intellectual property, litigation/disputes, and regulatory compliance.

[Recent Initiatives of Cloud Legal]

● The corporate legal ALSP "Cloud Legal," a contract/legal BPaaS, ranked first overall in the "BOXIL Inquiry Count Ranking H1 2026" in the contract review category. In H2 2025, it ranked first overall in "Contract Review," "Legal Research," "Pharmaceuticals and Medical Device Act Check Service," and "Trademark Registration Service," and second overall in "Anti-Social Forces Check Tool."

~ Providing advanced and reasonably priced legal services nationwide through Internet Web Services (BPaaS) that fuse SaaS x BPO ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000053.000126939.html

● MOLTON, provider of legal BPO "Cloud Legal," and NX Onebishi Archives, provider of electronic contract and contract management service "WAN-Sign," jointly created a verification article on contract review and drafting using generative AI and legal AI.

~ Explaining the efficiency of legal and contract operations and risk hedging using "general-purpose generative AI" and "legal AI," supervised by legal tech strategic officers and attorneys ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000049.000126939.html

● BPaaS with legal AI: Corporate legal ALSP "Cloud Legal" and NX Onebishi Archives' document digitization services "WAN-Scan" and "AI-OCR x BPO" collaborate in the legal due diligence field.

~ Providing legal due diligence (legal DD) for large and small M&A, business acquisitions, etc., using AI-OCR x BPO x BPaaS ~

● MOLTON's automatic generation of legal due diligence reports receives high praise from attorneys as being "at a level that can be used almost as is," revealing the current state of legal DD x AI.

~ AI creates practical DD reports covering risk analysis to SPA policy. A portion of the DD report sample is released in this press release. ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000036.000126939.html

● Legal, intellectual property, financial, and tax due diligence (DD) in M&A reduced to less than half the workload by integrating AI and experts.

~ MOLTON also begins consulting for the creation and improvement of integrated reports. ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000046.000126939.html

● Legal AI-equipped BPaaS type corporate legal outsourcing service ALSP "Cloud Legal" releases Digital Government Plan for DX of government agencies, local governments, and municipalities.

~ Providing advanced and stable legal infrastructure solutions nationwide via Internet Web Services (BPaaS) to address "shortage of legal personnel in local governments" and "regional disparities." ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000041.000126939.html

● Attorney Naoto Nakamura, a legend in corporate law, appointed as Honorary Advisor / Product Domain Expert at MOLTON.

~ The knowledge and know-how of an attorney who has ranked first overall in the Nikkei "Lawyers Chosen by Companies" ranking for 10 consecutive years will dramatically enhance the quality and scope of MOLTON's legal AI services. ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000051.000126939.html

● Shohtaro Kamo, an expert in law and AI who also serves as an official ambassador for one of Japan's largest generative AI communities, joins MOLTON.

~ "People who know the field create AI." Combining over 12 years of practical experience as a corporate lawyer with AI engineering honed since the advent of ChatGPT, contributing to the advancement of legal AI. ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000052.000126939.html

● MOLTON (formerly a23s) implements rollup M&A and company name change.

~ Strengthening legal and intellectual property consulting capabilities and launching new services combining generative AI x experts. ~

https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000038.000126939.html

[Reference Information]

What is BPaaS (Business Process as a Service)? Differences between BPO and SaaS, and examples https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/bpaas

Explanation of ALSP (Alternative Legal Service Provider) https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/alsp

Can contracts be created and reviewed with AI? Possible tasks, benefits, and precautions

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/contract-ai

Key points for contract review? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/contract-review Reasons why legal checks are important and the procedure? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/legal-check

Basics of contract drafting? Specific basic items and how to request drafting from an attorney https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/contract-creation

What is Legal Tech? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/legal-tech

What is BPO? Types of contracts, benefits and drawbacks, and how to proceed smoothly

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/bpo-contract

What is Corporate Law? Laws to be aware of, legal risk countermeasures, and frequently asked questions? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/what-is-corporate-law

Is a corporate lawyer necessary for sole proprietors (startups/ventures) and SMEs? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/legal-advisor

What are Intellectual Property Rights? Explanation of types, importance, application procedures, and proper protection/management methods https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/intellectual-property-rights

Complete Guide to Trademark Registration Application Process! How to prevent infringement and avoid mistakes?

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/trademark-registration-application What is a Shareholder Meeting? Purpose, types, how to conduct, and key points for success https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/general-meeting-of-shareholders What is a Board of Directors? Role, benefits, meeting flow, and effective operation methods for strengthening governance https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/board-of-directors

Steps to company establishment? Comprehensive explanation of necessary procedures, cost breakdown, and benefits https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/company-establishment

9 Laws Related to Electronic Contracts! Knowledge necessary for companies to operate with peace of mind

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/electric-contract-laws Thorough explanation of labor-management agreement basics! Purpose, types, drafting process, and penalties for violations? https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/labor-management-agreement

What is CLM? Purpose and benefits of CLM, and challenges in contract operations

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/contract-lifecycle-management

What is the US CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act)?

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/what-us-cloud-law

Guide to the latest trends in security and data preservation for SaaS and cloud services

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/SaaS-data-integrity

What is on-premise? Easy-to-understand explanation of differences with cloud, benefits, and drawbacks

https://wan-sign.wanbishi.co.jp/blog/on-premise_type

To companies struggling with solo legal departments or a shortage of legal staff. The new form of corporate law realized by contract/legal BPaaS

https://romsearch.officestation.jp/interview/55728

Above

[Contact Information]

● Professional Services Division

Contact: [email protected]

● IR Public Relations Representative: Kanazawa

Contact: https://www.cloudlegal.ai/contact

[MOLTON Inc.] "Formerly: a23s Inc." (URL: https://www.molton.inc/)

Company Name

MOLTON Inc.

Location

N&E BLD. 7F, 1-12-4 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Representative

Representative Director Yasufumi Sakichi

Business Description

Legal Platform

Professional Services for Corporations

Capital

100 million yen

Corporate Number

3010001227019

*Company names and product names listed are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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