Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Our technology transactions, outsourcing, and commercial contracts team on October 30, 2024 held its annual industry summit in New York. The theme this year was Unleashing the Potential of Technology, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Attendees included in-house counsel and sourcing professionals across a number of industries, including representatives from the client and vendor side. The diverse audience led to highly interactive discussions among some of the leading voices in the tech and sourcing fields.

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Use restrictions in software as a service (SaaS) agreements work in tandem with the scope of access and use rights provisions to clarify the scope of a user’s right to use a SaaS solution. These restrictions will be extremely important to the SaaS provider, however, consideration of such restrictions is also paramount for the users of the SaaS solution.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on October 31, 2024 published observations and key lessons from how firms responded to the CrowdStrike IT outage. The outage caused disruption across several industries globally, and the FCA highlights for UK financial services the importance of ensuring operational resilience in order to minimize the potential impact of future events on consumers and markets.

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An essential feature for customers in outsourcing software licensing and arrangements is the provision of robust protection against any software that could embed and distribute malware. To address these concerns, the inclusion of a no-virus warranty has become a common expectation on customers’ side.

According to OECD data, by 2020 digital trade represented 25% of global trade, amounting to just under $5 trillion. Digitalization of economy is on the agenda for many national governments as they come to appreciate the transformative power of technology in reducing transactional expenses and improving the competitiveness of their economies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is top of mind for all businesses looking to grow. Economic researchers point to AI as a key factor to boost the economy, and believe that AI could result in billions, if not trillions, of dollars in technology-related spending. However, this potential growth will not be possible in isolation; it requires massive amounts of supporting infrastructure.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on September 25, 2024 announced Operation AI Comply. The initiative is a response to potential misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) for “deceptive or unfair conduct that harms consumers” and represents the latest in a series of actions taken by the FTC in this space. The enforcement actions target false claims and representations by services providers, and touch upon the use of generative AI tools for competition. The FTC described these cases as “just the latest” in its “ongoing work to combat AI-related issues in the marketplace from every angle.”

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the umbrella group of the EU’s data protection authorities, has issued new Guidelines 01/2024 of October 9, 2024 on the processing of personal data based on the legitimate interest legal basis in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).