Outsourcing

Recent Articles

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  08.02.2023

  Europe

  EU Data Act – Fo­cus on Cloud Ser­vices: what is “func­tion­al equi­val­ence” … and is it ne­ces­sary?

  In the second Law-Now in our cloud services series on the proposed EU Data Act (the “Act”), we focus on the concept of functional equivalence. One of the aims of the Act is to remove barriers to access to data for both consumers and businesses. In pursuance of this in the context of cloud services, the Act introduces new rules to facilitate switching between providers of cloud services and other data processing services.The requirements relating to functional equivalence are a key component of the cloud switching obligations and, as currently drafted, have the potential to significantly...

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  16.01.2023

  CEE

  Use of out­sourced IT per­son­nel in Cent­ral and East­ern Europe

  While Europe is the region most impacted by the ongoing war in Ukraine, IT service markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are expected to continue to grow by nearly 6% and 7% in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Many international technology companies have already opened their R&D centres in the CEE region. Software investments will drive most technology spending in Europe in 2022, and software will be the fastest-growing technology group. Eastern Europe, and Ukraine in particular, have highly skilled and experienced IT talent with deployable skills for broad range of outsourcing projects. The...

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  15.11.2022

  Scotland

  Twenty's Plenty: Free­dom of In­form­a­tion re­form, twenty years on?

  Twenty years since the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was introduced, a consultation based on a proposed Freedom of Information Reform (Scotland) Bill has been launched (closing on 02 February 2023) following "wide consensus that reform to Freedom of Information is well overdue” (source). This CMS Law-Now explores six key Freedom of Information reform proposals currently under consultation in Scotland. Background The Freedom of Information (FOI) regime in Scotland provides a statutory right of access to information held by Scottish public authorities. Just last year, Scotland’s...

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  27.09.2022

  United Kingdom

  A miss is as good as a smile: no dam­ages awar­ded for “ex­cus­able breach”

  A recent case has considered a claim for damages following a breach of the Public Contract Regulations 2015 and held that, despite the breach changing the outcome of the procurement, it was not ‘sufficiently serious’ to justify an award of damages. The judgment appears to significantly raise the bar for claimants seeking to pursue a damages claim for a breach of the public procurement rules. In doing so, it also highlights the importance of ‘pre-contractual’ remedies, and specifically the ability to have an award decision set aside as opposed to pursuing a ‘post-contractual’...

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  31.08.2022

  United Kingdom

  Crit­ic­al Third Parties to the fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­tor dis­cus­sion pa­per pub­lished

  Background Following a recent Law-Now on this topic which focused on HMT’s confirmation that it will legislate to permit financial regulators to directly oversee and supervise (previously unregulated) “critical” third parties (“CTPs”) that provide services to the finance sector, the Bank of England, PRA and FCA (together, “the regulators”) have published a joint discussion paper (the “paper”) giving more detail on their proposed approach. This follows the publication of the Financial Services and Markets Bill (the “FSM Bill”) on...

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  09.06.2022

  United Kingdom

  Crit­ic­al Third Parties to the fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­tor: the dawn of a new era

  Background HMT has confirmed that it will legislate to permit UK financial regulators to directly oversee and supervise (previously unregulated) “critical” third parties (“CTPs”) that provide services to the finance sector. Financial services firms have become increasingly reliant upon cloud and other third-party providers in recent years, coming to rely upon a small number of service providers for material services. There is concern that the failure or disruption of one of these critical service providers could have a systemic impact across the financial sector and threaten...

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