The government has announced it will come up with a new code of practice to replace an earlier approach that faced opposition from the creative sectors. By Deborah Kirk and Brett Shandler Latham previously reported on the UK government’s proposal to introduce a new copyright and database exception that allows text and data mining (TDM) … Continue Reading
The DSA has a broad scope and regulates many aspects of digital services. By Gail E. Crawford, Jean-Luc Juhan, Susan Kempe-Mueller, Deborah J. Kirk, Lars Kjølbye, Elisabetta Righini, Sven Völcker, Ben Leigh, Victoria Wan, and Amy Smyth The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a key part of the EU’s digital regulation strategy, which seeks to … Continue Reading
The amended bill aims to safeguard freedom of expression whilst still protecting children and adult users in the online environment. By Gail E. Crawford, Deborah J. Kirk, Alain Traill, and Victoria Wan The Online Safety Bill (the Bill) was introduced by the UK government on 17 March 2022. The Bill aims to impose obligations on … Continue Reading
The bill has been introduced into the UK’s Parliament with various amendments to the initial draft published in May 2021, reflecting the extensive feedback received and the challenges in reaching a consensus. By Gail Crawford, Deborah Kirk, Elva Cullen, Alain Traill, and Victoria Wan In March 2022, the UK government formally introduced the amended Online … Continue Reading
A proposed broad copyright exception for text and data mining that favours AI developers is unlikely to be welcome news for rightholders. By Deborah Kirk and Brett Shandler On 28 June 2022, the UK government published its response to its consultation on “Artificial Intelligence and IP: Copyright and Patents”, which commenced in October 2021 (Response). … Continue Reading
In Lexology’s Getting the Deal Through: Digital Health 2021 (UK) Latham & Watkins considers the key regulatory and transactional issues faced by market players and practitioners. By Frances Stocks Allen, Oliver Mobasser, Sara Patel, Mihail Krepchev, and Samantha Peacock The UK has an active digital health market comprising both the private and public sectors. Venture … Continue Reading
The proposals includes fines for non-compliance of up to the greater of £18 million or 10% of a provider’s annual global revenue. By Gail Crawford, Rachael Astin, Alain Traill, Katie Henshall, and Amy Smyth On 12 May 2021, the UK government published the Online Safety Bill (the Bill), which aims to establish a new regulatory … Continue Reading
This recent CJEU decision raises a number of considerations for content rights holders and for those seeking to link to content online, across both the EU and the UK By Deborah Kirk, Luke Vaz, and Amy Smyth Under UK and European laws, the rights of copyright holders include the right to restrict or prohibit reproduction … Continue Reading
The long-awaited update to the e-Commerce Directive proposes new obligations for online platforms and changes to the ‘safe harbours’ from liability for infringing content. By Jean-Luc Juhan, Deborah J. Kirk, Elisabetta Righini, Thies Deike, Grace E. Erskine, Alain Traill, and Amy Smyth On 15 December 2020, the European Commission released a set of long-awaited proposals … Continue Reading
Organisations face fines of up to 10% of annual global turnover or £18 million (whichever the greater) for failure to comply. By Gail Crawford, Rachael Astin, Alain Traill, and Katie Henshall On 15 December 2020, the UK government published its full response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation, which sets out final proposals for … Continue Reading
Research participants must identify which data sets constitute personal data to ensure compliance with the GDPR. By Frances Stocks Allen and Mihail Krepchev The UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has published a useful guidance note on the identifiability, anonymisation, and pseudonymisation of personal data in the context of research activities (the Guidance). The Guidance reminds … Continue Reading
Update confirms the introduction of an active “duty of care” and a dedicated regulator, as part of a comprehensive new online regulatory regime. By Alain Traill, Rachael Astin, Gail E. Crawford, and Patrick Mitchell Following a wave of commentary from industry, the social sector, and other organisations, on 11 February 2020 the UK government set … Continue Reading
Insights from Latham’s flagship event: Managing the risk and promise of digitisation in financial services. By Fiona Maclean, Stuart Davis, and Alistair Wye In a bid to keep pace with rapid advances in cloud adoption across financial services, regulators have published a raft of new guidance in the past year. Most recently, the European Insurance … Continue Reading
How can private equity firms identify and mitigate inherited liability risk from vulnerable portfolio companies? By Tom Evans, Gail Crawford, Fiona Maclean, David Walker, Katie Peek, Catherine Campbell, and Amy Smyth Ongoing big ticket regulatory fines coupled with high profile corporate veil cases indicate that private equity deal teams must remain alert to the risk of … Continue Reading
GDPR and PSD2 are two legal initialisms that have both generated a great deal of press coverage in recent months, but they are seldom considered together. By Christian F. McDermott, Calum Docherty and Brett Carr There were around 122 billion non-cash payments in the European Union (EU) in 2016, with card payments accounting for 49% … Continue Reading
FCA Chair hints that new regulation addressing data ethics in the FinTech space may be on the horizon. By Nicola Higgs, Fiona Maclean and Terese Saplys Will societies of the future be ruled by algocracy, in which algorithms decide how humans are governed? Charles Randell, Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford, Hayley Pizzey, Mark Sun, and Calum Warren As European data protection regulators prepare to enforce the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) from May 2018, private equity firms must act to minimise the risk of becoming financially liable for the data protection failings of portfolio companies. After a recent spate of high-profile data breaches, … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford, Mark Sun and Katie Campbell Amid a growing number of high-profile corporate data breaches, cybersecurity is now a key issue for strategic acquirers. The hack of Yahoo, which came to light midway through its 2016 takeover by Verizon, resulted in a US$350 million purchase price reduction. The true extent of the hack … Continue Reading
By Deborah Kirk The European Commission (EC) has released a position paper on its objectives for the Article 50 Brexit negotiations with the UK regarding Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). The EC has effectively set out six key principles for the Withdrawal Agreement, including: Continued legal protection for certain IPRs: Any IPR with unitary character (e.g., … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford and Calum Docherty Her Majesty’s Government last week published a position paper outlining its preferred post-Brexit landscape for data protection. The high-level takeaways are hardly surprising: the government stresses that it intends to “remain a global leader on data protection” and, as we already know, the UK’s Data Protection Bill, announced in … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford Cybercrime has become a critical issue for buyout firms as hackers are increasingly targeting sensitive business data to profit from insider knowledge. According to a Private Funds Management survey of 91 PE houses, 54% of PE firms said they had been hit with a cyberattack, while 45% said cybersecurity was a high … Continue Reading
By Gail Crawford and Danielle van der Merwe Following the commencement of the Brexit negotiations earlier this week, the Queen announced in her speech on Wednesday a new law that will “ensure the United Kingdom retains its world-class regime protecting personal data”. This bill will replace the current Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK. One of … Continue Reading
By Christian McDermott, Calum Docherty, Stuart Davis and Anne Mainwaring The European Banking Authority (EBA) has published its consultation document on security measures for operational and security risks under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). The WannaCry ransomware attack that swept across the globe last week revealed the destructive and indiscriminate nature of cyber threats. It attacked … Continue Reading
By Sophie Lamb and Samuel Pape The latest global ‘WannaCry’ attack has again brought to the fore the need for sovereign and private parties to have in place adequate cyber-security measures and response plans to deal with cyber-attacks, including in the context of international arbitration. As attackers are becoming increasingly resourceful in their ability to … Continue Reading