Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

The UK’s Law Commission (the Commission) published a consultation paper on July 28, 2022, proposing certain reforms to private property law in relation to digital assets, which was in response to the UK government requesting the Commission to ensure that the law can accommodate digital assets as they continue to evolve and expand. The Commission acknowledged the increasingly important role digital assets play and that property rights are key for the proper characterization of novel and complex legal relationships involving digital assets.

The financial services regulations relating to outsourcing by Luxembourg-headquartered financial institutions have been significantly simplified by the introduction of the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) outsourcing circular CSSF 22/806 (Outsourcing Circular).

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports (DCMS) confirmed on August 30, 2022, that it will push forward with tough new regulations and a code of practice to bolster the security and resilience of the United Kingdom’s electronic communications networks and services against current and future cyberthreats.

On August 19, Russian State Duma member Andrey Kuznetsov introduced a bill on compulsory licensing of copyrights that allows the courts to approve compulsory licenses for content and other copyrightable objects not available in Russia.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) continues to be a focus area for many companies. As technology companies shift ever increasingly toward the cloud, it is important to keep up to date with ESG issues that may arise for their own company, their vendors, and clients.

In outsourcing, technology, and commercial transactions, cost of living adjustment (COLA) mechanisms linked to price indices are coming under increasing scrutiny with current global inflationary pressures.

On July 18, 2022, the UK government published high-level proposals for its approach to regulating uses of artificial intelligence (AI), as part of its National AI Strategy and, more broadly, its UK Digital Strategy. The government is seeking public views on the approach, which is contained in a policy paper; a more detailed White Paper will be published in late 2022.

Increasingly, companies have been looking to shift from non-cloud IT infrastructure to cloud-based solutions, and have allocated higher monetary resources to cloud-based IT infrastructure products such as compute and storage infrastructure. In fact, as reported by the International Data Corporation (IDC), Q1 of 2022 marked the first time that companies are now spending more money on their cloud-based compute and storage infrastructure than they are on their non-cloud-based IT infrastructure.

In June 2022, the UK government published its cross-government UK Digital Strategy for creating a world-leading environment in which to grow digital businesses. The Digital Strategy brings together various initiatives on digitalization and data-driven technologies, including the National AI Strategy. The government states that it is actively seeking to grow expertise in deep technologies of the future, such as artificial intelligence, next generation semiconductors, digital twins, autonomous systems, and quantum computing.

The UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) recently extended the deadline for responses to a policy paper issued on May 26, 2022, calling for views on UK data storage and processing infrastructure, security, and resilience (the Call for Views). The Call for Views invites contributions from data center operators, cloud platform providers, managed service providers, data center customers, security and equipment suppliers, and cybersecurity experts to better understand the risks associated with data storage and processing services.