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Data Protection and Risks in Cross-Border Joint Ventures

By E. Leigh Dance and Barbara Sessions
September 02, 2013

In July, U.S. prosecutors said they had uncovered the largest credit card fraud operation in U.S. history and arrested six men in Russia and Ukraine. See, “4 Russians, 1 Ukrainian Charged in Massive Hacking,” Yahoo News. More than 160 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen, costing the victim companies more than $300 million. The fraud targeted Citigroup, JC Penney, JetBlue Airways, Nasdaq and PNC Financial Services. It's no wonder that senior in-house lawyers in the recently released Winston & Strawn “International Business Risk Survey” say that their top concern in following data privacy laws is customer data ' including data security and risk.'Tied for second-greatest concern are cross-border data transfer and legal compliance with data security and breach notification laws.

“Interestingly, it is the potential for loss of brand equity that responding corporate counsel identify as their most significant concern,” says Lisa Thomas, a data privacy and protection partner with Winston & Strawn in Chicago. In this sense, they are well-aligned with their business-side colleagues in focusing on reputational risk. “Given this 'external' focus, they should continually re-evaluate the effectiveness of their data-protection policies, procedures, and training, including domestic and cross-border compliance,” Thomas says.

Reducing business risks of data privacy breaches, corruption, and other compliance issues is a constantly evolving challenge for growing international companies. Laws and enforcement vary widely from one country to the next, and market practices are highly inconsistent around the world.

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