Tech & Sourcing @ Morgan Lewis

Join us throughout August and September as our international presenters dive into the key and trending topics technology companies and consumers focus on while operating in the Asian market.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, many industries experienced a major shift in how the personnel of key suppliers worked, with “nonessential” personnel in large part working remotely. When this shift to remote work first happened (rather abruptly for many companies), security was a critical consideration, but one that was handled in many instances outside the supplier contract, with both parties focusing on keeping business operations going with must-have data and security safeguards in place.

As part of our Spotlight series, we spoke with Mike Pierides, the deputy leader of our technology, outsourcing, and commercial transactions team and a co-leader of our digital solutions industry team, on outsourcing in the financial services (FS) sector.

With a solid uptick in requests for assistance with outsourcing, cloud, and as-a-service contracts, 2022 has been busy from the get-go. ISG Index confirmed this trend across the market in its recent Q2 ISG Index Report presentation on July 13, highlighting as one of its three key takeaways that “contracting activity remains strong, with ADM, engineering and industry BPO leading the way.”

The “shift to the cloud” continues, with analysts making bold predictions regarding the increase of cloud adoption by companies across almost every industry. Cloud solutions offer many cost, innovation, and scalability opportunities. What is often forgotten or considered late in the process, however, is the change in the risk, compliance, and contracting paradigm that arises with the reliance on a third-party cloud provider. If given the time and attention, these changes can be managed and the risks controlled with appropriate diligence and contracting structures.

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges, requiring companies to adapt quickly to the way their personnel work, changes in their business offerings, and how they interact with their customers and suppliers. With some time to adjust to the “new normal” of the pandemic (and hopefully soon, the post-pandemic), many companies are looking ahead—with a potential economic downturn being top of mind.

The race to improve, automate, and modernize business operations has led many companies to reexamine their foundational digital platforms to assess whether it is time (or past time) to transform these platforms to better support and keep pace with current and future business needs and leverage state-of-the-art technologies. While the possibilities of platform transformations are exciting—from disruptive functionality and analytics to enhanced user experience—they can also be daunting from a project management, timeline, and cost perspective.

As we all try to keep up with the Metaverse and as the healthcare system wilts under a data deluge, the convergence of realities in a shared online space is not merely a chance for practitioners and patients to find each other and interact in new ways, it’s also a rare opportunity to help a new paradigm sprout. The answers to detangling some sticky wickets of Health 2.0, like ensuring efficient, secure communications and exchanges between participants, may share a common thread: clear out (not just debug) the cobwebs and flip the crypt.

As part of our Spotlight series, Dion Bregman (who wears many hats at Morgan Lewis, such as deputy leader of the firm’s intellectual property practice, leader of the firm’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) team, managing partner of the firm's Silicon Valley office, and co-leader of the firm’s technology industry team) shares some of his meta thoughts. As a follow up to Dion’s recent participation in a panel discussion, An Introduction to the Metaverse, Dion provides insight into some important developments, issues, and opportunities, as we all continue to focus on Keeping Up with the Metaverse. 

A new Morgan Lewis White Paper, Bipartisan Proposal Attempts to Provide Solutions for Comprehensive Regulation of Digital Assets, analyzes the proposed Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA) in the United States from several different angles, including with respect to issues such as key definitions in this emerging space, jurisdiction, ancillary assets (which are not fully decentralized), stablecoin issuance, taxes, disclosures, and money transmission.