Getting to know your documentation

With the asset built, the next question is what governs it. Aevy classifies the documents it holds, picks out the agreements among them, and reads who each one involves. Do this before switching anything on: it tells you which documents matter and who you are dealing with, which is what every later decision rests on.

Step two of four

After reviewing the asset information. Work through the two below in order, then move on to assessing the data room.

How it fits together

Four things chain, and each level multiplies the one before it. That chain is why a portfolio’s paperwork gets unmanageable, and why reading it once is worth the time.

Information and obligations come out of the whole set, so they belong to the agreement rather than to a file. A term is only current once you know which document in the set last changed it.

Aevy links these documents to each other as it reads them, so an amendment is attached to the contract it amends rather than filed beside it. That matters more than it sounds: a notice period read from the main contract is wrong if an amendment changed it, and the only way to know is to hold the link.

Map the stakeholders

Start with who. Aevy reads the party definitions, the recitals and the signature blocks of every agreement on the asset, and proposes each party as a company, with the individuals who signed as people.

1. The legal name, not the label. A GmbH stays distinguishable from its sister company, and a contract that only ever says “the Contractor” produces no stakeholder, because a role without a legal name is not one.
2. The role on the asset. Owner, operator, offtaker, lender, landowner, grid operator, insurer.
3. One company across many agreements. The same party in the O&M contract, the lease and two amendments stays one company with four documents behind it.

The result lands on the asset’s contacts, each carrying the documents it was read from, so “on what basis is this our O&M provider” is answered by opening the contract.

Two things worth checking while you review: a site with no named grid operator, or two companies both looking like the owner, is telling you something about the paperwork rather than about the site.

Find the agreements that matter

You do not have to know which documents matter before you start. Aevy classifies everything on the asset as it reads it, so the contracts, leases, offtake agreements, insurance policies and grid agreements separate themselves out of the data room without anyone sorting folders.

What you get from that pass is a shortlist: the documents that actually govern the asset, out of everything you happen to hold. That shortlist is what step three checks for gaps, and what the obligation workflows read.

Limits

Aevy proposes what the agreements say, which is the position on the day each was signed. A counterparty since acquired or renamed still reads as the company that signed until a document says otherwise. That is the correct legal answer even when it is the unhelpful practical one.

Agreements name signatories, who are rarely the people you call. Add the day to day contacts by hand, and note that contact details come from the documents: Aevy does not enrich them from outside sources.

What’s next

• Assess the data room: step three. Now that you know what you hold, check it against what you should hold.
• Contacts: the companies and people this fills in.
• Obligations: the duties those agreements carry.
• Documents: the agreements themselves.