I’m on a plane flying back from this year’s ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, which, as usual, delivered four days’ worth of excellent sessions and food for thought. The hottest topic by far was data privacy, especially in light of the NSA revelations this week.
Globalization and Data Privacy
Almost all of the panel sessions that I attended [e.g., on
social media, government investigations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
(FCPA)] touched on the topic of privacy in one way or another. The primary driving
force behind this topic’s heat factor, however, is the increasingly global
nature of business today.
EU Data Privacy in E-Discovery
We were pleased to participate as a company in various
sessions, which were well attended and prompted intense, productive
discussions. Our Assistant General Counsel, Chad McManamy, moderated a panel
discussion entitled, “Overcoming EU Data Privacy Challenges in E-Discovery.”
The panelists for this session were:
The Honorable Shira A.
Scheindlin, a very influential U.S. District Judge, Southern District of
New York, whom I consider the “Godmother of E-Discovery”
Mark
Harrington, our own General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
David
Goodis, Director of Legal Services and General Counsel, Office of the Information
and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario
Dominic Jaar,
KPMG Canada Partner and National Practice Leader.
The lively and timely discussion at this session dealt with
issues like the European Union’s interaction with “privacy friendly” countries
such as Canada, EU-based corporations’ privacy concerns when dealing with
U.S.-based corporations and our propensity for litigation, as well as the
ramifications (or lack thereof) of failing to adhere to privacy regulations in
countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Process and Risk in Cross-Border Discovery
Later in the afternoon, our Vice President and Deputy
General Counsel, Daniel Lim, sat on a panel entitled, “Managing the Processes
and Risks of Cross-Border Discovery" with Scott Carlson, Partner and
e-Discovery Practice Group Co-Chair at Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Harvey Jang,
Director of Privacy and Information Management at Hewlett-Packard. They provided
an overview of the evolution of data-privacy rules in the EU and Asia, and the
inherent conflict with U.S. discovery requirements. The panel also offered practical tips on
navigating privacy restrictions in the context of business information needed
for litigation in the US. A key point of discussion was the way that the cultural
differences between the EU, Asia and U.S. can create conflicting views on the topic of privacy.
Did You Attend? I
welcome your comments on highlights from the ACC Annual Meeting in the Comments
section below.
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