Our cloud practice

Field Fisher Waterhouse is one of the largest and most highly regarded technology law firms in Europe. We act for cloud infrastructure, platform and software providers and their customers on new and innovative cloud services and on a variety of public, hybrid and private cloud solutions. 

Our extensive experience of cloud-based services includes:

Commercial and contractual advice: Our top-ranked technology team regularly draft, advise on and negotiate contracts in the cloud arena and are at the cutting edge of developing vendor models. We provide our clients with risk-based, pragmatic advice, helping bridge the gap between the legal assurances that providers are willing to offer and customer requirements in relation to areas such as service levels, security standards and regulatory compliance.  

Data protection in the cloud: Our internationally renowned privacy team covers the whole range of cloud privacy issues for suppliers and customers. In particular, we help our clients to overcome the EU prohibition on global data transfers, currently a significant hurdle to wide-spread adoption of public cloud services. Our specialist team is at the forefront of policy in this area.  We are pioneering a new approach, working with service and technology providers and national data protection authorities on proposals for "Binding Safe Processor Rules".  If implemented, these would allow service providers to seek "safe processor" status from the EU data protection authorities more readily facilitating international transfers.

Data security: Our data security team is at the forefront of advising leading cloud providers and customers on cloud-related security matters, advising on product development and customer regulatory issues as well as the management of data security breaches. Stewart Room, who leads our data security team was awarded FT Legal Innovator of the Year for his work on data security technologies and is the author of Butterworths Data Security Law and Practice. 

Regulation: The market in cloud solutions is diverse, including hybrid cloud and closed platform solutions designed to address the regulatory concerns of customers in a given sector.  We have a wealth of experience advising service providers and customers across a range of highly regulated sectors, including financial services, central government, local government, energy and health. Our in-depth industry and regulatory knowledge is invaluable to service providers developing targeted service offerings which support their customers' compliance, as well as to customers requiring specific regulatory requirements to be reflected in their contracts. Specific regulation including Sarbanes-Oxley, the Financial Services Authority requirements and HM Government's Security Policy Framework all require consideration in cloud contracts and through our expertise in working with the supplier and customer communities, we have been developing acceptable solutions to ensure these issues are practically addressed.

Liability: Suppliers and customers have legitimate concerns to protect in the cloud space. Suppliers will want to avoid liability for customer content and ensure acceptable use of shared infrastructure. Customers will be cautious about placing their applications and data on infrastructure in someone else's control. Coming to a consensus on warranties, indemnities, IPR, privacy and limitations of liability (to name but a few issues) is central to ensuring a fair and commercial deal for both parties. We have the market knowledge and pragmatic approach to support rapid closure on these issues.