Centaur Communications, the publisher of The Lawyer magazine and TheLawyer.com, has been sold for about £130m to stockbroker Numis Securities, who plan to float the company on the junior Aim market. The acquisition by Numis has sparked some controversy and may yet result in an investigation by the Financial Services Authority. Meanwhile back at the coalface, TheLawyer.com is expected shortly to relaunch LawZone, the legal community website it acquired last year from Sift, as an aggregator of articles provided by law firms and chambers. Using the Sift technology Lawzone will draw together articles published by firms and chambers and provide links from the text to free and paid for services (such as Context and LexisNexis). In addition to the main site, the site will be structured around over 20 specialist zones focusing on a range of practice areas and supported by generalist and specialist newswires.
