Annual TechLaw Day

Our event aimed to give in-house lawyers working in tech companies and contracting personnel in user organisations an understanding of the important tech and contract law developments over the last year. Attendees included representatives from Nokia, Barclays, Just Eat, Atos, Yahoo!, Last FM, Rackspace, Deloitte and Google, to name a few.

Legal Stream

Graham Smith (Partner, London) delivered an engaging review of the internet and e-commerce year to date, highlights included his analysis of the Investigatory Powers Bill.

Second in the Legal Stream was Andrew White (Partner, London), who delivered a very well received presentation on contract law, the Brexit panel discussion followed, which included audience participation questions discussing the potential impact on tech companies in the UK.

Workshops

This year delegates chose between the following six workshops spread across the morning and afternoon:

• Internet of Things & Funding - this interactive session discussed the financing opportunities from a wide range of perspectives provided by the panel including the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, RBS, Smedvig Capital and Precision Outcomes.
• Internet of Things & Big Data - Barry Jennings (Legal Director, London) and Howard Rubin (Partner, London) were joined by a real-time operational intelligence provider, Splunk and StatusToday to discuss how data analytics can be used for competitive advantage.
• Cybersecurity & Reputation - Simon Shooter (Partner, London) was joined by MHP Communications, Contextis and CybSafe to discuss the cyber risk to reputation as it presents today, how to avoid a reputational hit and the legal risks to reputation.
• Cybersecurity & Risk - Simon was joined by IRM Security, AON and CybSafe to discuss insurance, how to deliver the right form of cyber education to the workforce and the legal risks in cyber.
• FinTech – Blockchain - Martin von Haller (Partner, Copenhagen) was joined by BlockVerify to deliver a 'reality check' on blockchain, discussing use cases in Financial Services, as well as an introduction to the legal challenges surrounding smart contracts.
• FinTech – BitCoin - Trystan Tether (Partner, London) discussed BitCoin and regulation, focussing on consumer protection against technological failure and AML Compliance.

Tradeshow

We hosted a trade show in our new Business Lounge for tech start-ups, including Darktrace, Yoti, Glitchers, StatusToday, Fliplet, Cognitiv+ and Prod Designs.

Howard commented: "We have been running an annual update for 11 years. This is the first time we have been able to run the event in our own office and it was the most successful to-date with close to 170 attendees from clients and industry contacts."