Conclusion

As the adoption of new technologies is certain, grappling with the new risks posed by that technology should be a priority

The picture emerging from this survey is of a continuing appetite to invest in new technology, with a growing appreciation of technology risk, without yet having established systems for management of that risk.

Investment in technology is likely to be a competitive necessity for many organisations and this will inevitably take precedence over risk management concerns. Accordingly, legal teams need to prepare for a future in which swift but considered responses to growing technology risks are the norm.

Corporate counsel teams will be in the spotlight, charged with the responsibility of reducing, avoiding or displacing those risks, but also managing the growing legal consequences of the range of technology failures an organisation may face. This will prompt a greater need for more specialist in-house lawyers within those teams, who are able to respond quickly to deal with the array of challenges emerging and know who to turn to for the bigger problems.

Disputes are a natural and inevitable cost of doing business and will continue even as the types of dispute change. Organisations should be alert to the need for evolving responses to technology disputes and alive to the time and cost implications of traditional contractual dispute resolution methods.

Automation and autonomy are growing trends in business technology, with implications and risks that may prove hard to foresee now and in the future. However, if the destination is unclear, the direction of travel is not. Technology risk management is increasing in complexity, away from quantifiable and containable risks to a more open-ended and less certain future.

Comfort can be found in the fact that past and current risks are at least well-understood and identified. Organisational responses to those risks have not yet reached maturity, however. Organisations appear to have a greater appetite to assume more and new risks because risk also represents opportunity.

Organisations not planning for this increased risk, may – at best – be at a serious disadvantage, and at worst, will face a precarious future. No business can eliminate these risks, but those who plan early to manage them give themselves a substantial advantage.

Discover other CMS reports


13/09/2022
Open secrets? Guarding value in the intangible economy
Some leaks can’t be fixed “Confidential information is like an ice cube... give it to the party who has no refrigerator or will not agree to keep it in one, and by the time of the trial you have just a pool of water.” This, from the so-called Spycatcher case (1987), applies well to corporate assets: fail to store them correctly and all you might have left is an expensive mess. The consequences of even a minor exposure of a trade secret can be huge. As this report reveals, the protection of trade secrets is rightly recognised by most senior executives as a priority issue. But the research also reveals gaps that leave companies unnecessarily exposed to risks. The top named threats – cybersecurity attacks and employee leaks – resonate with what we see impacting our clients. Increased home and remote working is straining security measures and employee loyalty. Added to this, an ‘innovate or die’ attitude in highly-com­pet­it­ive sectors can motivate new joiners to arrive with questionable material from their previous employer, or worse: outright theft between competitors. But while it is easy to focus on the lurking threats from weakened cyber security and disgruntled employees – and they are important – there are more routine actions a company can take to safeguard its secrets than just updating its IT systems or the employee handbook. Commonly, those who most need our help already have a trade secrets policy but have not properly implemented it in relation to the secret in question. Or the policy has not been updated to reflect the intangible assets the business now owns. Or protection was taken for granted. With trade secrets – which for many businesses are strategically more important than a public patent portfolio – it is always costlier and messier to find solutions after a theft or a leak. Identifying the trade secrets and the threats posed to them, combined with rigorous internal processes and well-drafted contracts, can help prevent such problems from happening. Harder, but just as necessary, is engaging hearts and minds in corporate culture, to know why trade secrets are important, why we are all are responsible for protecting them, and what may happen if we do not (to both the company and the individual). In our experience, the businesses with the strongest defences have not only thought strategically about their intangible assets and how best to protect them but are also prepared for the worst. The trick to avoiding an asset becoming a crisis is to be wise before the event.
21/05/2023
GDPR Enforcement Tracker Report
A warm welcome... ... to the fourth edition of the GDPR Enforcement Tracker Report – the anniversary edition celebrating five years of GDPR. In the five years since the GDPR became applicable its powerful framework for imposing fines has certainly helped to raise awareness and encourage compliance efforts – just as the European legislator intended. At the same time, the risk of fines of up to EUR 20 million or 4% of a company’s global annual turnover can also lead to fear and reluctance or ignorance about compliance issues. We still believe that facts are better than fear. This is why we continuously update our list of publicly known fines in the GDPR  Enforcement Tracker and started the GDPR Enforcement Tracker Report as an annual deep dive approach to provide you with more insights into the world of GDPR fines. As in the three previous editions, the GDPR Enforcement Tracker Report starts with the Executive Summary (also available as a PDF version), followed by the “Numbers and Figures” section and the “Enforcement Insights per business sector” (also including the overarching employment category. The “Enforcement Insights per country” provide background on the specific enforcement framework under national law. Some remarks on our methodology can be found at the very end of the report.
16/06/2021
CMS European Class Actions Report 2021
First report on the true picture of European class action risk, a key concern for major corporates