Broad Range Of Businesses Turn To Thomson Boardlink For Secure Online Corporate Board Communications

ArthroCare, 21st Century Insurance Group, and Student Transportation Choose Thomson Financial to Help Streamline Workflow, Ease Board Communications

NEW YORK, NY, 03/21/2006, Thomson Financial, an operating unit of The Thomson Corporation (TSX: TOC, NYSE: TOC) and leading provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community, today announced a list of new customers that have adopted Thomson BoardLink(TM), a secure online communications tool designed specifically for corporate board members.

Thomson BoardLink is an online communications tool designed to streamline the task of communicating with geographically disparate board members, ease the difficulty of scheduling board and committee meetings, and securely distribute proprietary corporate information. In addition, Thomson BoardLink provides a rich reference library of third-party resources, including Sarbanes-Oxley background and industry best practices, as well as information from proprietary Thomson Financial data sources.

Representing a broad range of businesses, from small-cap to Fortune 500 companies, that recognize the need for technology to support secure board communications, the new customers include ArthroCare, 21st Century Insurance Group, and Student Transportation.

“These clients represent leaders in the growing move toward online board communications,” said Greg Radner, senior vice president of Corporate Executive Services at Thomson Financial. “Thomson developed BoardLink to respond to the need for better and timelier communication with board members and the increased pressure on corporations to deliver. These early adopters are showing their leadership by embracing today’s most advanced technology tools to keep board communications efficient and compliant.”

“At ArthroCare we recognized early on the importance of effective board communications and built our own system internally. However, we found Thomson BoardLink easier to maintain and made communications even more efficient,” said Katie Zarzana, executive assistant at ArthroCare. “Having trusted Thomson Financial with our investor communications, we were impressed they had also developed a service tailored to board processes, answering our need for timely, secure communication with our board.”

With directors in California, New York and Japan, 21st Century Insurance Group chose BoardLink because the company was concerned about getting board materials to directors in a timely fashion, something that is difficult to accomplish with traditional mail and email-based processes. The company was also looking to improve their overall compliance for record keeping and security.

Student Transportation has a large and diverse board that needs the latest information delivered fast and securely. The company chose BoardLink primarily to make this process more automated and less time-consuming.

Thomson BoardLink Customers

ArthroCare Corp (NASDAQ: ARTC, www.arthrocare.com)
ArthroCare is a highly innovative, multi-business medical device company that develops, manufactures and markets minimally invasive surgical products. With these products, ArthroCare significantly improves existing surgical procedures and enables new, minimally invasive procedures. ArthroCare was attracted to Thomson BoardLink’s turnkey and thoughtful approach to handling their communications needs.

21st Century Insurance Group (NYSE: TW, www.21st.com)
Founded in 1958, 21st Century Insurance Group is a direct-to-consumer provider of personal auto insurance. With $1.3 billion of revenue in 2005, the Company insures over 1.5 million vehicles in California, Texas, Illinois, and six other states. 21st provides superior policy features and 24/7 customer service at a competitive price.

Student Transportation of America (TSX: STB.UN, www.sta-ips.com)
Student Transportation is the fifth-largest provider of school bus transportation services in North America, conducting operations through local operating subsidiaries. Student Transportation has become a leading school bus transportation company by aggregating operations through the consolidation of existing providers and conversion of in-house operations and currently operates more than 3,500 school vehicles in North America.

About Thomson BoardLink
Thomson BoardLink, a proprietary solution built by Thomson Financial, is designed to ease the burden on corporate secretaries while meeting the communication and information needs of directors. Combining a powerful secure online collaboration tool with seamless access to business and financial information, Thomson BoardLink addresses the needs for board members and corporate secretaries to communicate quickly and efficiently, while keeping sensitive corporate data secure.

Using the BoardLink workflow tools, corporate secretaries can easily distribute relevant company information, real-time business information, and reference materials in a highly secure environment. BoardLink’s valuable third-party information and best practices resources also help directors stay more informed and save them time and effort in board and committee work.

About Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial, with 2005 revenues of US$1.9 billion, is a provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community. Through the widest range of products and services in the industry, Thomson Financial helps clients in more than 70 countries make better decisions, be more productive and achieve superior results. Thomson Financial is part of The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), a global leader in providing integrated information solutions to more than 20 million business and professional customers in the fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare. With revenues of US$8.70 billion, The Thomson Corporation lists its common shares on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC).

Contact Information

Kerri Shepherd

Manager, Public Relations

Thomson Corporation

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