Leveraging Technology and Innovation for In-House Legal Departments

August 13, 2021
Eoin Gillen (APAC General Counsel for BNP Paribas) speaks to Stephanie Szeto (head of Peerpoint) about the challenges and opportunities of embracing technological transformation within the BNP Paribas in-house legal team. Stephanie: Could you tell us a bit about how BNP Paribas has successfully leveraged technology in your legal team’s innovation? Eoin: With the technological transformation going on around us, legal departments simply cannot afford to ignore the possibilities that digital innovations bring. We’ve developed a number of things, some in partnership with vendors and others internally. As part of a large financial institution, and with banks themselves becoming more like large technology companies, when it comes to things like document automation tools the legal department is part of a bigger product and process chain. BNP Paribas is not just looking at the production of legal documentation, but every element of the transaction from start to end. Some of our document automation initiatives have been in that context, but our in-house legal function is also large enough to justify investment in technological solutions that are tailor-made to meet our needs. We’ve invested significantly in document automation tools for standardized contracts and have been are upskilling certain staff with basic coding skills to get the most out of those tools. We’ve also built a proprietary legal risk reporting tool that is being used globally, allowing us to monitor and track the development of new legal risks. That creates a structured data set that can be analyzed to anticipate risks and spot risk trends and patterns, so we can focus resources or beef up talent as we need to. Stephanie: How...

What more Needs to be Done for Singapore’s Cybersecurity Laws

June 22, 2021
As data grows in value and importance, the phrase “data is the new gold” is now heard regularly in the corporate world. With 5G mobile networks and the internet of things (IoT), more data than ever is being mined and Singapore is in the prime regional position to store this new “gold.” In its 2019 and 2020 reports3, the consultancy Cushman & Wakefield ranked Singapore’s data center capabilities as sixth worldwide and first in Asia-Pacific market, which is “forecast to reach US$28 billion by 2024, 20% higher than the US$23.4 billion North American market.” The reports reasoned that data center players will “favor Singapore for its relative security to store mission critical data and the business-as-usual data in the neighboring countries.” Cybersecurity Laws In A Nutshell Singapore has adopted a framework of key legislation and sector-specific regulations to address cybersecurity issues. The Cybersecurity Act 2018 moved Singapore away from sector-based regulation and required cybersecurity service providers to gain a license. It empowered the Commissioner of Cybersecurity, amongst others, to establish mandatory codes of practice and reporting/auditing requirements for owners of critical information infrastructure (CII). A non-owner of CII has an obligation to cooperate in cybersecurity investigations by the commissioner. The Act is linked to the Computer Misuse Act which criminalizes cybersecurity offences such as unauthorized access to computers. The Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA) also requires organizations to implement security measures to prevent unauthorized access, collection, use or disclosure of personal data. At the same time, sector-specific regulations continue in force. For example, the Monetary Authority of Singapore publishes notices and guidelines on cybersecurity best-practice for the banking...

A caveat for AI developers

April 28, 2021
Every decent AI system needs plenty of high-quality data with which to train. This is especially important for adapting to local needs because getting this wrong could be disastrous – as Volvo discovered after finding its Scandinavian-trained autonomous vehicle prototypes didn’t know what to do when they encountered kangaroos in Australia. Building efforts It may be expensive to acquire and curate the right local data to build a good AI system. But it is important to invest in finding suitable training data, collecting it, correcting for any errors and ensuring the data is not corrupted (for example, by a cyberattack). AI developers have many ways to find good data: Use data in the public domain (some risk of bias and data unsuitability); Purchase data; Generate new data – for example, use a text and data mining (TDM) system which is the automated discovery of new information from different written resources. After making all that investment, it is critical not to allow a third party to disrupt your operations and business model through legal action. This is why anyone using a TDM system should be aware of two key copyright concerns. What qualifies as copyright? Most would assume data collected for training by a TDM could be protected as a database. But if the system merely captures and dumps data into a file without any organisation, it may not qualify for copyright protection as a “database” since the data isn’t arranged in an “original” way. Regarding database protections: UK law has provisions for databases defined as collections of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical...

The shape of lawyers in the future – T, O or Delta? By Peter Connor

September 23, 2020
Living and working as a lawyer in the US, Asia, Europe and Australia for over 30 years, my legal knowledge and skills were the foundation of my career. But, more than anything, it was a range of non-legal skills and competencies that really helped me to change the way I worked. They allowed me to make more of an impact, enjoy my work more and ultimately be more successful. I’d like to say that it was all part of a master plan, but it wasn’t. It was largely opportunistic and unstructured. I thought to myself that it doesn’t need to be that way for other lawyers. So, in 2015, I decided to form AlternativelyLegal and share my experiences through a program that I initially called Everything But The Law. Back then, only a few people were talking about the importance for lawyers to develop, and to know how to use, non-legal skills such as process improvement, design thinking, business partnering and change management. A lot has changed over the last five years and especially the last twelve months. At a macro level, there has been a general recognition of the importance for all workers to develop what are often referred to as ‘soft skills’.[i] Also, as the World Economic Forum’s Report on the Re-skilling Revolution[ii] highlights, there is a critical and widespread need to re-skill and up-skill to anticipate the advance of technology and adapt to new roles and ways of working. Re-skilling involves learning new skills and competencies for potential new roles and up-skilling involves learning new skills and competencies for career progression within the same role. Does...