Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

In a March 2020 LawFlash, we highlighted that restrictions on service delivery locations and remote work could become key issues during the pandemic. Remote work was one of our five key issues in outsourcing and managed services in a follow-up article in June 2020. Our experience has since proven both articles to be correct. This Contract Corner will review the specific provisions that need to be reviewed based on continued remote work arrangements.

As we’re almost a month into the New Year, we thought this would be the perfect time to share nine areas of your service agreement templates that you should consider reviewing and updating to ensure you start 2021 on the right foot. Some of these suggestions may seem like no-brainers, but they’re on the list for a reason, trust us.

Planning for a change in service providers can sometimes feel like a logistical nightmare, but with proper planning and a long-term outlook, you can ward off operational issues that may arise during the process of transitioning back in-house or to a replacement provider. In this post, we’ll discuss at a high level some of the items to consider when planning a change in service providers, or ideally to consider and build into any new service provider agreement at the outset.

The inclusion of acceptance requirements, including acceptance criteria for key activities and deliverables, within a service agreement can provide a blueprint for a service engagement’s success, and should not be overlooked during the contract drafting process. In this post, we’ll discuss at a high level some of the items a contract drafter should consider when drafting acceptance requirements.

The European Commission (Commission) published draft Article 28 standard contractual clauses (Article 28 Clauses) last month for use between controllers and processors when processing personal data in the European Union. Somewhat confusingly, these clauses share the same name as the new Standard Contractual Clauses for personal data transfers out of the EEA, which were also published in November 2020; however, the two are distinct.

The use of aggregated data by technology service providers is quite common in today’s landscape, and something that even traditionally cautious customers have become amenable to in the right circumstances and subject to proper limitations.

We are kicking off our Tech & Sourcing webinar series on October 13 with our first event, Service Engagements and Business Continuity: A Fresh Look. Morgan Lewis partners Barbara Melby and Michael Pillion will address the evolving approaches in services engagements, including how to address and allocate responsibility for unanticipated business interruptions and business continuity requirements.

Peter Watt-Morse and Ben Klaber, members of our technology, outsourcing, and commercial transactions practice, will be presenting a one-hour session on cloud computing as part of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s (PBI’s) virtual Cyberlaw Update 2020. The session will take place Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 10:10 am ET.

With the world in various states of lockdown, your organization’s online presence is more important than ever…even more so with official enforcement of CCPA beginning last month. It may be a good time to spend an afternoon reviewing and updating the legal boilerplate on your organization’s website. Here is what we recommend for a basic three-part review to get you started:

Adding corporate flexibility to IT-related commercial contracts can make seemingly unrelated mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions a bit less complex.