Our bags are packed; we're ready to go…

We reported over a week ago on the possibility of regulatory holidays sneaking into the Telecoms Package (We’re all going on a [regulatory] holiday…).   Last week (6 May 2009), the European Parliament did its best to get the last word on the Telecoms Package – see the outcome of the second reading. This has given us the first look at the Common Position adopted by the Council.

Don’t try doing a word/phrase search for “regulatory holiday”; nothing as blatant as that has been inserted into the Common Position.  However, have a look at the draft of the amended Article 8(5)(d) of the Framework Directive 2002/21/EC that is proposed:

5.  The national regulatory authorities shall …. apply objective, transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate regulatory principles by, inter alia:

…

d) promoting efficient investment and innovation in new and enhanced infrastructures, including by ensuring that any access obligation takes appropriate account of the risk incurred by the investing undertakings and by permitting various cooperative arrangements between investors and parties seeking access to diversify the risk of investment, whilst ensuring that competition in the market and the principle of non-discrimination are preserved;

[bold italic text inserted by the Council.]

Anyone care to explain?  Is this the back door to regulatory holidays? It’s a typical example of European late night compromise drafting, so that the article appears to mean whatever you want it to mean (i.e. incumbents will argue that a degree of regulatory holiday is necessary to “diversify the risk of investment” whilst new market entrants will say that access to new non-replicable infrastructure is essential for “ensuring that competition in the market” are preserved).

The Telecoms Package has not been vetoed by the European Parliament, as reported by some commentators.  The Common Position, as amended by the European Parliament, now goes back to the Commission and the Council.  If subsequent trilogues do not lead to an agreed text, the amended Common Position will go to the Conciliation Committee.

Information Commissioner hates lawyers?

We think the Information Commissioner has been reading too much Shakespeare, particularly Henry VI (Part 2).  One of the most cited quotes from the play is, of course:

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. – (Act IV, Scene II).

Why do we say this?  Look at the ICO press releases for this year.   From these press releases, which industry sector would you consider to be the most in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998?  You’d have to say law firms, given that four of them have been prosecuted as against only one other company, The Consulting Association.  Is this right, given that at the moment public authorities seems to be doing a spectacular job of losing personal data on almost a daily basis?

It’s a Friday before a Bank Holiday.   Most lawyers in UK law firms will be looking forward to a rest after a busy week (traditionally law firms’ financial year end is 30 April).  So perhaps this post should be in the cateogry “tired and emotional”!

Enjoy the weekend.  Even the weather forecast is quite good!

Binding Corporate Rules

A press release from the Information Commissioner today is a good reminder that there is another way of dealing with data transfers into and out of the European Economic Area but within multi-national organisations – using binding corporate rules (BCRs).

We note that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is getting a good track record of being the coordinating data protection authority of choice for organisations wishes to get their corporate rules authorised.  However, BCRs are still not exactly popular.  The ICO as so far only approved 4 BCRs:

15 December 2005: General Electric Company (employee data)
2 April 2007: Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV (employee data)
22 April 2009: Atmel Corporation (employee data)
30 April 2009: Accenture Limited (employee and client)

Maybe multi-national prefer dealing with a whole stack of export of data agreements?!