The Local Distributor / Agent Model In “The Pit of Permanent Establishment – Part 1”, we looked at how a technology business could find itself creating a permanent establishment in a foreign jurisdiction by accident – just by starting to do business without obtaining appropriate tax and legal advice, and that this invariably resulted in adverse cost consequences for the …
We looked closely at the Chancellor’s 2015 UK Autumn Spending Statement this week to see how it might affect the technology industries here in the UK. It seems that up to £600 million of additional funds will be set aside to support the move to turn the 700 Mhz frequency spectrum over to wireless broadband in the UK. This follows …
When technology businesses have exhausted the market in the UK, the next logical step is to start exporting services. Exporting to EEA countries has its own challenges, including differences of language and sometimes also of culture, but exporting beyond the European Single Market may bring some more interesting additional legal and fiscal challenges, including the spectre of “permanent establishment”. A …
Be aware that the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) will be consulting early in 2016 concerning its proposal that the government should introduce a broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO), with the aim of giving customers the legal right to demand a broadband connection speed of 10Mbps, regardless of location. In its 7th November 2015 press release, DCMS …
On 20th October, we reported the decision of the European Court of Justice decision that the existence of the “safe harbour” agreements operated by the US Federal Trade Commission were no longer grounds for validating the transfer of Mr Schrem’s data from Facebook Ireland to Facebook in the US. That decision was published on 7th October. Be aware that on …
I had a read yesterday through the European Commission work programme for 2016, optimistically subtitled “No time for business as usual”. It seems that creating a connected Digital Single Market in the European Union will generate up to €250 billion of additional growth for the European Single Market (hooray), but sadly even the proposals for achieving this will not materialize …
I have noticed over the years, that the point in contract negotiations where the lawyers start talking about the force majeure clause often coincides with the point at which clients show the first serious signs of losing the will to live. And yet (strange but true) if a force majeure clause does not meet the business needs of one or …
I was surprised the other day to receive a notification from one of the Mac user forums, that there was a new app, which they recommended for internet security. I wondered at first how it would be different from the Norton security package, which I use today for my office systems. When I looked into it a bit more, I …
Many of us have only just got used to 4G but discussions have already started about how to harmonise the next generation of telecommunications standards (5G) to connect billions of devices wirelessly and using fibre optic technology for enhanced speed and reliability. The European Union and China have signed a co-operation accord to collaborate in the development and roll out …
Under the terms of the European Privacy Directive 95/46EC (and in the UK, the Data Protection Act 1998), European based data controllers are prohibited from transferring personal data outside of the European Economic Area, to associated companies or third parties, unless the non-EEA country adequately protects personal data and the rights of personal data subjects. The only countries, which have …