As stated by Wired, “It’s all the standard advice you’d give a tech novice,” aptly sums up the White House’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP) that President Obama unveiled on February 9, 2016. Announced as part of the President’s overall budget proposal, CNAP is a plea within the federal government…
Sourcing Speak
An Overview of Cybersecurity Issues Affecting Retirement Plans
Retirement plan sponsors face ever-evolving cyber-related threats to plan assets and participant personal information. To combat such threats, plan sponsors should proactively assess the third-party service providers’ ability to detect, prevent and respond to cyberattacks against the retirement plan. In order to minimize a retirement plan’s overall cyber risk profile,…
PATH Act Changes to FIRPTA
Brian Wainwright • Robert S. Logan The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the “PATH Act,” Division Q of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, P.L. 114-113, enacted December 18, 2015) made some important changes to the U.S. federal income tax treatment of U.S. real estate investments by non-U.S.…
Out with the Old, In with the New: Commercial Flexibility & Revenue Expectation in IT Outsourcing Agreements (Part 2 of 2)
Happy new year, outsourcing industry! In our last post, we posited that the new year brings an opportunity for a fresh start in structuring fundamental aspects of an outsourcing transaction. We pointed to the following mechanisms used to restrict a customer from an early exit from an IT outsourcing deal…
Out with the Old, In with the New: Commercial Flexibility & Revenue Expectation in IT Outsourcing Agreements (Part 1 of 2)
The advent of the new year provides an opportunity to contemplate a fresh start — and that’s just what is needed when it comes to structuring the fundamentals of an IT outsourcing transaction. Early IT outsourcing transactions typically involved significant capital investments by suppliers, who would often purchase the customer’s…
Say “Yes” to the Service Desk: 4 Keys to Documenting Services like a Champ
Of Silk and Services As I listened to my wife, a custom wedding dress designer, talk a hysterical bride off the cliff this past weekend, I realized the conversation sounded eerily familiar. My wife was certain that the completed dress in front of them was exactly what had been ordered…
Don’t Get Caught with your Transition Services Down (part 2 of 2)
In the first installment of this post, I posited that one factor contributing to disappointing results following a merger or acquisition is the flawed perception that transition services are not that important. I noted that this mindset may dilute the effectiveness of the post-deal enterprise(s) and result in unanticipated and…
Top EU Court’s Ruling Subjects Companies Doing Business Across Europe To “New Sanctions” in Potentially Unfamiliar Jurisdictions
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been very busy in recent weeks re-shaping EU privacy laws. In addition to the much-anticipated decision in “Schrems” (Case C-362/14), which essentially rules the US-EU Safe Harbor invalid, the CJEU has also considered the key issue of “establishment” in another…
Safe Harbor “Invalid”… now what?
Yesterday was a big day for the Court of Justice of the European Union! The fifteen-year-old regime governing EU-U.S. data transfers has been struck down. Specifically, the CJEU declared invalid the safe harbour framework (the “Safe Harbor Framework” or the “Framework”) that thousands of U.S. companies have relied upon to facilitate data transfers…
The payment services market under the eye of the regulator
Global Sourcing attorney Sarah Atkinson, who are based in Pillsbury’s London office, have recently published the article, The payment services market under the eye of the regulator , in Banking Technology. The article considers criticisms of the payment services industry and how the new Payment Services Regulator is hoping to…