Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

In the wake of the reinvigorated call for equality and greater diversity and inclusion, many companies—largely through their procurement organizations—are taking the opportunity to revisit their diversity supplier programs, including assessing impact and reevaluating best practices for pursuing supplier diversity and tracking the impact of these programs.

In April, we shared a LawFlash Outsourcing and Managed Services Agreements During COVID-19: Our Perspective. With the continued and unprecedented impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on business operations, we thought it would be timely to provide a brief update on five top-of-mind issues that we are addressing with outsourcing and managed services clients.

The conditions created by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting government shutdown orders have raised questions across various industries regarding contractual rights and obligations during the crisis.

When responding to requests for proposals (RFPs), vendors should be conscious that they might be disclosing highly confidential or commercially sensitive material to the potential customer, with no guarantee of securing the proposed contract. Such information could, without any restrictions, be used by the potential customer to assist the vendor’s competitors or to develop solutions in-house.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) published on December 9, 2019, its report on financial institutions’ increasing reliance on third parties to provide cloud computing services (the Report).

Please join us in our Philadelphia office for our annual Technology, Outsourcing & Commercial Contracts Networking Roundtable.

In a long-term outsourcing, software as a service (SaaS), or other services agreement, the customer will typically push for a termination right relating to the service provider’s breach, and perhaps for an insolvency event or change in control of the service provider.

Are you about to sign a service agreement with a third-party service provider under which it will access and use technology of your company? Have you checked your applicable third-party contracts to see if you need any consents?

The UK government has indicated that the UK’s approach to public procurement will fundamentally change post-Brexit. While it remains to be seen whether such a fundamental change will be possible in practice, the UK government’s pronouncements clearly suggest that change is on the way, which will most likely provide a less prescriptive framework for UK contracting authorities to follow.

The US–China trade deal signed on January 15 aims to strengthen intellectual property protection for US intellectual property holders.