Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Morgan Lewis’s technology, outsourcing, and commercial transactions team often advises on transactions where there is some form of intellectual property being transferred from one party to another party. This may be due to a corporate transaction, a cooperation or joint venture arrangement, or some other form of commercial agreement.

While the regulatory landscape around artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, navigating contractual arrangements and apportioning risk for the use of AI may seem like stepping into the unknown. In this blog post, we consider how a few familiar concepts within commercial contracts may be applied to the provision and use of AI tools as part of services.

The first half of 2023 was one of the most active six months for legislative and regulatory developments around artificial intelligence (AI). Our colleagues recently noted the European Parliament’s adoption of a draft AI Act as well as the significant activity in the United States related to regulating AI, both at the federal and state level. AI is also increasingly giving rise to data privacy concerns.

The EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF) became effective on July 10, and on the same day, the European Commission adopted an Adequacy Decision relating to the DPF, as a successor of the EU-US Privacy Shield. While only those companies subject to the jurisdiction of either the Federal Trade Commission or the US Department of Transportation are eligible to self-certify their compliance with the DPF, the scope of eligibility is likely to broaden in the future.

We recently wrote about the emerging trend of content moderation outsourcing. In this blog post, we turn our attention to another growing trend: legal process outsourcing.

Open-source software (OSS) representations and warranties are an integral part of the intellectual property (IP) representations and warranties in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions and financings, as M&A transaction documents regularly include requests for a seller to represent and warrant that it has policies in place regarding the use of OSS, has provided such policies to the acquirer or investor, and has not deviated from such policies. These representations and warranties are important, but they are routinely and necessarily backstopped by the due diligence process.

Please join us on July 12, 2023 at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm ET for a discussion on key considerations arising from employing and compensating a global workforce. The panelists—Morgan Lewis labor and employment partners Lesli Ligorner, Matthew Howse, and Jonathan Zimmerman and of counsel Leslie Dupuy—are drawn from four Morgan Lewis offices across three jurisdictions for what promises to be an insightful discussion.

Please join us on July 11, 2023 at 1:00 pm–2:00 pm ET as a panel of Morgan Lewis lawyers assess recent decisions affecting, among other things, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies at businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Although the advent of readily accessible social media platforms has allowed for the proliferation of user content worldwide, there is increasing pressure on social media platforms and related companies to moderate the content that their users publish. Due to the decentralized nature of content sharing, companies are increasingly turning to third parties to handle their content moderation needs. As a result, content moderation has become one of the latest emerging trends in outsourcing services.

The UK government has released updates to its Digital, Data, and Technology (DDaT) Playbook, outlining guidance and relevant considerations for entities dealing with DDaT projects in this fast-changing sector. The DDaT Playbook works in conjunction with other publications from the Cabinet Office Sourcing Programme, such as the Sourcing Playbook.