On 3 December, the Council agreed on its position on the proposal for a Directive on measures for high common level of cybersecurity across the Union (the “NIS2 Directive”). This follows the adoption of the Report on NIS2 by the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on 28 October 2021 (please see our…

On 15 December 2020, the European Commission published proposals for two regulations to regulate digital services, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. According to the Commission’s press release, the two proposals are a central part of the Europe’s digital decade agenda.  In this contribution the authors discuss the Digital Markets Act that…

Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is seen as a key emerging technology that the European Parliament in its Draft Report on AI in the digital age (issued in November 2021) recently labelled as the fifth element after air, earth, water and fire. AI is expected to contribute more than EUR 11 billion to the global economy, which…

While some saw the development of products using blockchain technology leading to the demise of disputes, the reality is that disputes in the arena of digital technology are increasing in number. Lawtech’s UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) has recognised that these disputes require a flexible and efficient means of resolution. The UKJT has published its Digital…

Customers in long-term technology projects can find that while they have been working towards their chosen solution a more advanced, cheaper, or simply more desirable technology has become available. The benefits of switching solutions may be very significant, but exiting an existing agreement can be costly and complex, both legally and commercially. Since delays in…

On 22 September 2021, during the third day of London Tech Week, the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport published its first National AI Strategy, detailing its 10-year plan to position the UK as a global leader in the governance of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) technologies by boosting business use of AI, attracting…

A first initiative in the EU data strategy to capture the enormous potential of ‘Big Data’ appears to be nearing completion. On 1 October, EU Member States agreed on a common position with respect to the proposal for a Data Governance Act (DGA).

To recall, the aim of the proposed Act is to set up…

Customers in long-term technology projects can find that while they have been working towards their chosen solution, a more advanced, cheaper, or simply more desirable technology has become available. The benefits of switching solutions may be very significant, but exiting an existing agreement can be costly and complex, both legally and commercially.

The situation frequently…

For decades, Over-the-Top service providers (OTT) have developed outside the EU legal framework for electronic communications as the latter was not designed to regulate non-traditional telecom players.

On top of that, the European framework relied on a set of directives which has been implemented through member states’ local laws following various approaches.

The obsolescence of…

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is a payment method which is increasingly popular with merchants and customers. This popularity has, however, led to a corresponding increase in scrutiny from UK regulators. This article explores how BNPL works, how it is currently regulated in the UK and the impact of impending regulation.

What is BNPL?

BNPL…

The start of inter-institutional negotiations on the proposed Data Governance Act are expected to be announced at the start of the European Parliament’s plenary session next week. This follows the adoption on 15 July of a report on the Act by Christian-democratic MEP Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany) for the lead Industry, Research and Energy Committee…

On 17 August 2021, the Chinese central government released the long-awaited Regulations on Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) Security Protection (CII Regulation), which took effect on 1 September 2021.

In this article, we highlight the key provisions of the CII Regulation and set out our observations on the regime.

Background

The concept of CII was first…

The digital platform Ageras A/S (“Ageras”) is a bidding platform which facilitates contact between providers of accounting and bookkeeping services and potential customers. The platform operated with an automatised price standardisation mechanism, in which providers who were bidding for tasks were given an automatic notification, along with the option to adjust the price of their…