Bloomberg Law, July 7, 2020

By Daniel R. Stoller

US companies may need to brace for tougher restrictions on importing data from the European Union after the bloc’s top court rules next week on two legal mechanisms most use to ship the information. At stake is the transatlantic data market—worth hundreds of billions of dollars —that lets companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google, Facebook Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. use US-based facilities to serve European customers. European regulators want to ensure the mechanisms governing data transfers protect Europeans’ privacy as stringently outside of the bloc as within.

Invalidating either pact would create “significant disruptions” to the cross-border data market, said Thomas Boué, director of Europe, Middle East, and Africa policy at BSA | The Software Alliance, which counts Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., and Okta Inc. among its members. “If you can’t move HR data, how can you do payroll?”

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Original Posting: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tech-and-telecom-law/companies-face-possible-data-transfer-turmoil-in-eu-court-ruling