Accuracy is the first thing a competition lawyer tests in a legal AI product. This page describes, in plain terms, how AEDILE® treats sources and what it does when it cannot support a statement. It describes the method, not a guarantee of any single answer.
Official sources come first
AEDILE® retrieves in a fixed order. Structured decision inventories and the authorities library come first, then verified table data such as filing thresholds, then a reader that opens the exact source to check text, dates and quotations. Web search is used to find a source when the official one is not indexed; the search result itself is not meant to become the cited authority.
Where sources disagree, a ranking applies: current filing-regime reference data and regulator-sourced rules rank above case law, and case law ranks above commentary. Where two rules conflict, the later effective date wins. For a company’s own transaction, an official or register record outranks the company’s own website, which outranks press coverage.
Certified facts for thresholds
Merger-control thresholds and other current-law trigger facts are held as certified facts for 67 jurisdictions. Certified facts are not the same as a finished filing decision: where a related test (for example a call-in power, an exemption or an attribution rule) is not yet modelled, the answer keeps the filing conclusion open and says so, rather than presenting a number as if it settled the question.
Footnoted citations
Statements of fact and law in an answer carry numbered citations that map to a register of the sources the research actually retrieved. A citation certifies the sentence it is attached to, not the paragraph around it. Dates are bound to the source cited for that sentence, and case references are cross-checked against AEDILE’s verified authority records to reduce false citations.
Output is also cleaned before delivery: footnotes whose “source” is only a search query, a bare regulator homepage or a database row identifier are removed, as are references that the text never cites.
What happens to a claim it cannot support
Independent review passes read the draft against the cited sources. A sentence that makes a factual claim without support is re-cited to a source that does support it, narrowed to what the source says, or flagged as an open point. Where the evidence is available but was not retrieved, the answer states that the source exists rather than asserting its content. An answer that still fails the internal checks after repair can be held back from release rather than delivered as final.
Internal review gates
Before release, an answer passes a sequence of automated gates: a check on the public-query boundary at intake, citation and holding checks against the cited text, date and figure fidelity checks, and a release check for signs of fabrication. These gates are internal; review status is not shown inside client text.
What AEDILE® does not do
- It does not give legal advice and is not a substitute for a lawyer.
- Its output needs review by a qualified lawyer before anyone relies on it.
- It does not remove the need to confirm current law with the authority concerned; a source can change after it was read.
- Its output filters are layered safeguards, not a guarantee that no error can pass. They are best-effort and are extended as new failure patterns are found.
How AEDILE® handles your data and where processing happens is covered on the Security and deployment page.