litigation - legal aspects of new technologies

Cybersecurity Protocol for International Arbitration: Three international organisations—ICCA, the New York City Bar Association and CPR—are introducing best practice in protecting against cyber threats.

Cybersecurity is a particularly important element of the legal sector, including international arbitration. Digital exchange of information in arbitration proceedings involves, among other things, sensitive data of the participants in the proceedings, including the parties, arbitrators and arbitration institutions.

Failure to protect the exchange of information in cyberspace may result in leaking of sensitive information and abuse of confidential data by third parties. This can result in economic loss, damage to the reputation of the participants, as well as violation of the principle of fairness of the proceedings and the independence of arbitrators.

Last week, the Ministry of Digital Affairs announced that it has concluded an agreement with Facebook introducing a mechanism for Polish users to question a decision to delete content or a profile.

First instance, Facebook; second instance, contact point on NASK platform

Users around the world complain of arbitrary and unreasonable decisions to remove their content or Facebook profiles.

Until now, Facebook has made it possible to appeal against such a decision by filling in a form on its website. Facebook dealt with complaints but that did not always translate into a change of the original decision.

Thanks to the new agreement, after an unsuccessful appeal, a website user will be able to appeal again, this time via a specially created platform on the Research and Academic Computer Network (NASK) website, the so-called contact point.

Andrzej Sapkowski’s demands for more money for copyrights to The Witcher is the tip of the iceberg. Changes in the gaming industry, like increased production costs and the dominance of digital distribution platforms, will give rise to an increasing number of disputes, in particular over intellectual property rights. What could trigger these disputes and how can they be prevented?

Within the EU, web-blocking injunctions have become an increasingly prevalent mechanism utilized by copyright holders to protect against the unauthorized use of their copyrighted materials online. Recently extended to protect trademark rights, these injunctions are heralded by rights holders within the music, film, and luxury goods industries, as an incredibly effective method in protecting copyrighted/trademarked material from online infringement. However, these injunctions should be considered a weapon of last resort in fighting online infringement, rather than a standard tool of enforcing intellectual property rights (IPRs). Implementing these injunctions or filtering mechanisms should be done so sparingly, as their increased use endangers fundamental civil liberties such as free speech and due process.

While the new data protection regulation provides for severe administrative penalties for failure to comply, it is well known that whether a penalty is effective is determined not by its severity but by its inevitability. Even though the personal data protection authority has been given broad powers, it does not have adequate means of exercising them. A solution could be a private enforcement mechanism within the regulation, whereby any person whose data has been breached can independently seek a judicial remedy.

Private enforcement is being used more and more as an addition to the public law mechanism for the enforcement of regulatory provisions. This solution has been introduced recently in compensatory liability cases for breach of competition law. A solution of this kind is also possible under the GDPR.

Technological advance and resultant socio-economic “revolutions” have always triggered significant developments in international economic law.

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, inventions in navigation and cartography and the discoveries of new lands and trade routes led to innovations in economic organization, the “commercial revolution”, globalization of trade and the beginnings of international trade law.