Berkery, Noyes & Co. represents The Thomson Corporation on its sale of two units of Information America to Wolters Kluwer

NEW YORK, July 22, 1999 — Wolters Kluwer said today that it would acquire Document Resources and Data Filing Services, two divisions of Information America, from The West Group, Egan, Minnesota, an operating unit of The Thomson Corporation, Stamford, Connecticut. Document Resources and Data Filing Services will become part of CCH Legal Information Services (LIS), New York City, a Wolters Kluwer U.S. company. The deal is subject to regulatory review in the U.S.

Document Resources, Baltimore, Maryland, is a leading supplier of public documents to corporations, financial institutions, governments and law firms. Its specialized search and retrieval service locates and provides publicly recorded documents, such as Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filings, corporate filings and motor vehicle records, from any U.S. jurisdiction.

Based in Glendale, California, Data Filing Services is the most widely used UCC preparation, filing and tracking service in the U.S., with many of the nation’s leasing, finance and credit management companies as customers. Data Filing Services offers a complete document filing solution for customers involved with asset-based lending and leasing. Data Filing Services’ automated filing systems have the capability to tie directly to the customer’s internal system to obtain daily downloads of lessee information.

Data Filing Services then handles the UCC information and files them with the required state and local government entities.

LIS is a leading provider of corporate representation, corporate filing services and UCC search and filing services. LIS’ CT Corporation System unit has a long history of statutory representation; preparation and filing of corporate documents; and search and retrieval of UCC filings, liens and federal, state and local court records for the legal and corporate market.

The acquisition provides LIS with an opportunity to expand its presence in the financial segment of the UCC market as well as grow its document retrieval and filing business. LIS will be able to provide a greater breadth and depth of specialized services and sophisticated software to its customers with the addition of Data Resources and Data Filing Services.

The two units have approximately 125 employees and had combined 1998 revenues of about USD 12 million. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Wolters Kluwer is a multidomestic publishing company active in 26 countries. Core activities are legal and tax publishing, business publishing, medical/scientific publishing and educational publishing/professional training. Wolters Kluwer has a sales level of approx. Euro 2.8 billion and has over 16,000 employees.