A Beltug paper in cooperation with Piet Herman
The ‘Data Act’ (EU Regulation 2023/2854), which covers harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data, was published at the end of 2023. It establishes identical regulations in all EU countries, and applies to every provider of data processing services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, etc.) in the Union, regardless of their place of establishment.
This new Regulation has important consequences for contracting future SaaS and cloud computing services. What does this mean for contract practitioners?
11 / 03 / 24
The Data Act provides much-wanted rules on fairness. As it applies to every player, it will help to create a level playing field for data processing services. It will also play a role in avoiding vendor lock-in, and stimulating the use of in-parallel data processing services.
Beltug, in cooperation with our expert member Piet Herman, has put together a paper that looks into the Data Act impact specifically from the contract practitioner’s perspective. This includes how the Act approaches unfair clauses and disputes, including the setting up of a dispute settlement body.
The paper also outlines the Data Act’s explicit rules to facilitate switching, including mandatory contractual terms concerning switching between data processing services. And it covers how the Data Act governs interoperability between data processing services. Finally, the paper highlights the European Commission’s promised next steps.
Take a look at the Paper to see how the Data Act will remove a lot of the burden around contracting for cloud services, once it has been implemented and enriched with model contractual clauses.