Locating Business InformationProfessor Lisa Smith-ButlerAdvanced Legal ResearchFall 2014

Introduction Business information: Business information: ages rapidly; is frequently difficult to locate; & often is expensive to acquire.

Introduction Business transactions affect

Business information impacts: financial markets; international economies; corporate decisions; & and legal transactions.

Why do attorneys need business information? Attorneys need business information for: marketing to potential clients by ascertaining their legal needs; providing public relations services to clients and staying abreast

of regulatory, financial, and news developments in clients’ businesses;

locating proposed and new state and federal regulations that impact upon a client’s business;

locating assets of individuals or companies against whom judgments have been obtained; or

obtaining the litigation history of an adversary.

Research Strategies Before starting a business research request, ask yourself:

Before beginning a business research request, ask: whether basic background information is needed; whether a company is publicly or privately held; whether financially-generated or legally

generated information is needed; whether current news is needed; or whether information about people is needed.

Research Strategies If these questions don’t produce results, consider the following:

If these questions don’t produce results, consider the following:

what type of industry is the company a part of? what activity sector is the company a part of? is it a minority or a woman owned business? is it a top ranked company? is it a non-profit organization?

Basic Background

Basic background information about companies includes:

a company’s headquarters;address; phone and fax numbers; amount of annual sales; SIC codes; names of subsidiaries; &the names of key personnel

Locating Basic Business Information What is basic business information?

W What is basic business information?Where would I find it?Why would I need it?

Where would I find it? Why would I need it?

Sources for Basic Background Information Print & electronic sources for basic background information about companies include:

Print and electronic sources for basic background information about companies include:lources for basic background information about companies include: LEXIS ADVANCE CORPORATE AFFILIATIONS This series continues the DIRECTORY OF CORPORATE

AFFILIATIONS. This is a multi volume series published annually that

lists both public and private companies as well as domestic and international.

Lexis Advance CORPORATE AFFILIATIONS This resource provides the researcher with the following background information:

Company headquarters; Phone numbers; Addresses; Lists of subsidiaries; SIC Codes; Name & titles of key personnel; Types of products sold; & Amount of annual sales.

America’s Corporate Families: The Billion Dollar Directory This resource contains information about public and private U.S. companies.

It too provides the following: Corporate headquarters; Address; Phone & fax numbers; SIC Codes; DUN number; Names of members of the Board of Directors; Sales volume; and Number of employees.

It also lists the date company ownership is established and the names of the company’s accounting firm and bank.

DUN is the oldest credit rating service in the U.S. and it is probably the best known.

Hoover’s Hoover’s Handbook of America Business is published annually and profiles over 500 public and private organizations within the U.S. as well as large non-profit organizations.

Hoover’s Company Capsules is available in Lexis Advance and WestlawNext. It is also available as a fee based subscription via Internet at Hoovers.com.

Standard & Poor’s Standard & Poor’s Register of Corporations, Directors and Executives is a multi-volume series that is published annually and includes listings of both public and private companies.

In addition to basic background information o a company, this source also contains brief biographies of company executives and directors.

It is available via Lexis Advance and an Internet direct subscription to the product.

WestlawNext WestlawNext provides access to many Dun & Bradstreet publications, including extensive financial reports.

Westlaw also provides access to litigation information, UCC filings, tax liens, and judgments.

Bloomberg LawBloomberg Law’s Companies & Markets library provides a researcher with the following tools that provide both information and alerts:

Business Development Center

Edgar

Company Watchlist

Company Screener

Company Report Writer

Company Market News

Electronic Resources with Background Information In addition to the resources previously described, below are Internet sites that provide basic background information as well as industry ratings about companies.

Some of these sites include: Dun & Bradstreet @ http://www.DNB.com Hoover’s @ http://www.hoovers.com/ Moody’s @ http://www.moodys.com/ Standard & Poor’s @ http://www.standardandpoors.com/ The Public Register Online @ http://www.annualreportservice.com/

Hoover’s Hoover’s Company Capsule is available at no charge. It provides the following information:

Company headquarters, address, phone and fax numbers, and Internet URL;

Ticker Symbol on NYSE; Dollar Amount of Sales & Percentage of Sales Growth; Number of Employees; Key Personnel; SEC filings; and Competitors.

Hoover’s Hoover’s @ http://www.hoovers.com is a fee based service. However it does provide limited amounts of company information for no charge.

It provides coverage of both public and private U.S. companies.

You can search Hoover’s by: Company name; Ticker Symbol; Keyword; or Executive Name.

Public or Private? Information about any company, whether public or private, can be obtained.

Both public and private companies must register with a State’s Secretary of State and file appropriate UCC, real property and other legal records in local courthouses.

Only public companies are required to file reports with the S.E.C., the Securities and Exchange Commission.

S.E.C. FilingsThe S.E.C. requires companies with more than $10 million in assets whose securities are held by more than 500 owners to annually file voluminous reports that contain the following types of information:

sales;

executive compensation;

pending lawsuits; &

anticipated mergers.

To ascertain whether a company is public, check the DIRECTORY OF COMPANIES REQUIRED TO FILE ANNUAL REPORTS WITH THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE COMMISSION. The S.E.C.’s Internet site, http://www.sec.gov/, provides access to the Edgar database which is an electronic compilation of documents filed with the S.E.C. by companies.

The South Carolina Secretary of State South Carolina’s Department of State oversees its corporate registrations and business filings.

Under Business Filings, online access is provided for the following types of corporate information:

Standing of South Carolina corporations; UCC information; or Charity searches.

Charleston County Government Charleston County Government’s web site provides access to: Tax records; Deeds and property records; & Foreclosures among other items.

Locating Financial Information What is financial information? Where can I find it?

Financial Information Businesses buy and sell equipment, purchase, lease, rent and sell real estate, file bankruptcy, obtain judgments, secure liens, submit balance sheets to shareholders, and file 10-ks, listing their hopes to acquire other businesses. All of the above activities generate financial business information which the savvy researcher can locate.

Types of Financial Information with Legal Implications U.C.C. (Uniform Commercial Code) filings; Real Property deeds & transfers; Bankruptcy filings; Tax liens; or Judgments.

Where can you find financial information? Bankruptcy filings, tax liens, judgments, U.C.C. filings, etc., are available at the appropriate courthouse.

These materials are also available on WestlawNext and Lexis Advance.

An Internet site, Corporation Service Company, https://www.cscfinancialonline.com/home.aspx also makes this information available for a fee as does the D&B Internet site @ http://www.dnb.com/ .

Bloomberg Law’s Business Center also makes selected corporate financial information available.

Lexis Advance

WestlawNext

Stock QuotesCurrent stock quotes can be found at:

NASDAQ @ http://www.nasdaq.com/

NYSE @ https://www.nyse.com/index

Historical stock quotes can be found at:

Big Charts from Market Watch @ hhttp://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/historical?symb=msft

Legal Information How does legal information impact business decisions?

Do business implications impact legal decisions?

New and proposed regulations by federal and state agencies generate legal information that can impact clients in heavily regulated areas such as banking, pharmaceuticals or securities.

Federal regulations can be located in print and electronic resources via the FEDERAL REGISTER and the CODE OF FEDERAL REGULATIONS.

Legal Information If you want to speak to the individuals who propose, draft, administer and enforce the various federal and state regulations, there are two sources that are of use: the FEDERAL YELLOW BOOK and the STATE YELLOW BOOK.

The FEDERAL YELLOW BOOK provides the names, titles and phone numbers of the individuals who run the federal regulatory agencies.

The STATE YELLOW BOOK provides the names, titles and phone numbers of the individuals who run the state regulatory agencies.

Legal InformationBesides regulatory information, attorneys also need other types of legally generated information. Information about an adversary’s prior litigation history as well as their assets can be vital information.

Present and prior litigation history can be obtained by visiting a local courthouse and reviewing the dockets.

PACER PACER is an inexpensive online service that lists the docket sheets for cases filed in federal district and circuit courts. PACER access information can be found @ https://www.pacer.gov/ . Bloomberg Law also provides access to PACER via the dockets portion of its subscription.

Legal Information Lexis Advance and WestlawNext also provide access to this type of information.

They provide access to various records, including: Real Property Assessor’s records; Real Property transfers & foreclosures; Motor Vehicle records; Lawsuits records; UCC filings; Liens; & Judgments.

News: Current, Past, Rumor & Gossip Why would an attorney want to locate current or past news? Keeping information about clients’ businesses as well as their

activities may be necessary. WestlawNext’s AllNewsPlus database provides access to the

major newspapers and magazines while in the United States while Lexis Advance provides access to similar information.

Bloomberg Law’s Business Development Center has a section devoted to information that is called Rumors, Leads & Insights.

Current News American City Business Journals @ http://acbj.com/ indexes forty regional business newspapers.

Articles are available in full text at no charge.

Searching is via keyword.

Current News Bloomberg Personal is a global distributor of financial information. The services combines news, data, and analysis for financial markets.

Much of the data at the Bloomberg site is time delayed unless the researcher is also a subscriber. It does provide information about:

Municipal bonds; U.S. Treasury bonds; the Dow Jones Index; the DAX Index; the NIKKEI 225 Index; & the Hang Seng Stock Index.

Check out current legal news on American Lawyer

Locating PeopleWho do you need to locate?

Expert witnesses;Witnesses;Court Reporters;Defendants; orExperts.

To help locate individuals who have information and value as potential witnesses, there are several print and electronic resources.Lexis Advance and WestlawNext both provide access to information about people.Pipl @ http://www.pipl.com also provides information as does the White Pages @ http://www.whitepages.com/ .

People To locate expert witnesses, court reporters, private investigators, and mediators, visit Findlaw @ http://marketcenter.findlaw.com/ or Expert Witness @ http://www.expertwitness.com/.

To locate U.S. businesses, check out the Yellow Pages @ http://www.yellowpages.com.

To search worldwide for businesses, visit the World Yellow Pages @ http://www.worldyellowpages.com/ .

To locate individuals in the U.S. , check out the White Pages @ http://www.whitepages.com/ .

Still can’t find it? Check out industry or activity sectors by reviewing SIC codes and locating related information on the industry. View magazines with industry rankings such as Forbes. View publications devoted to minority or women owned businesses.

JetBlue Suppose that you need the following information about JetBlue.

Where would you find it and what is the answer? Open stock price on Friday, October 24th? Name of the current CEO of the company? & Annual revenue in 2013.

The AnswersUsing Hoover’s & Big Chart Historical Quotes, the answers to the questions are:

Opening stock price on 10/24/2014 is $10.88;

The CEO is David Barger; &

The annual revenue in 2013 was $5,441m.

ConclusionCheck out the New York Public Library’s Research Guide: Company Information, available @ http://www.nypl.org/node/5717 .