Samples Hunt
Updated
by Maarten Truyens
Samples Hunt merges the technology of Truffle Hunt with the vast "EDGAR" database published by the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
How to use Samples Hunt
Please see the pages that describe Truffle Hunt. The technology is exactly the same, and works in exactly the same way as with your only documents. The only real difference is that you cannot upload new documents to Samples Hunt.
About Edgar
The EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval) system, managed by the SEC, serves as the source for the documents included in Samples Hunt. Established in the early 1990s, EDGAR was developed to streamline the submission and dissemination of filings required by the SEC from publicly traded companies. These filings encompass a broad spectrum of corporate information, including annual and quarterly reports, insider trading disclosures, and details on mergers and acquisitions.
The underlying idea is that these documents offer some transparancy towards (potential) shareholders, to assess the state and the financial results of publicly traded companies. The documents sourced from EDGAR offer comprehensive insights into the financial health, strategic decisions, and legal obligations of publicly traded companies.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the licensing rights for using EDGAR documents?
The documents obtained from the EDGAR database are in the public domain and can be used freely. However, users should adhere to any guidelines set forth by the SEC regarding their use, especially in commercial products or services. - Who typically authors these documents?
The documents in the EDGAR database are primarily authored by the companies themselves, as they are legal filings required by the SEC. These filings are often prepared by a combination of company executives, legal teams, and financial officers. - Can these documents be redistributed?
Yes, since these documents are public domain, they can be redistributed. However, you probably do not want to re-use these documents in their entirety, because (1) the formatting of the documents is fairly poor, because the SEC does not provide the original documents; and (2) for non-Anglosaxon jurisdictions, the documents tend to be too long, too specific and too American.
Instead, you probably want to use these documents to search for interesting clauses. - How current are the documents in the software?
Previously we included documents from 2000 to 2022, but the feedback we received from our users was that the selection was simply too large, typically with thousands of results for each search. We have therefore deliberately limited our selection to the period 2015-2023.
We intend to add new years in the future, although it should be borne in mind that our use of the EDGAR database is for inspiration, so should not be used for situations where you require exhaustivity. Going forward, we may also delete old years (such as 2015, 2016, and onwards) when we add new years. - Which legal domains are included?
The EDGAR database contains millions of documents; many of them are not relevant for drafting inspiration purposes. We therefore selected mostly contracts, in the field of commercial law, finance agreements, employment law and commercial law (real estate, distribution agreements, IT, IP).
