Cloud Computing: Contracting and Compliance Issues for In-House Counsel

May 2013

Abstract

Many organizations across the world are adopting Cloud based services, to reduce information technology (“IT”) costs and to meet rapidly growing business demands. Organizations now have to think about purchasing IT as a service, instead of making the traditional hardware and software purchase decisions. This fundamental paradigm shift is not only challenging for procurement professionals, it also presenting new challenges for the in-house counsel, who are often involved in negotiating large Cloud services agreements. Cloud services contracts are different compared to the traditional IT outsourcing agreements, since a Cloud service is designed as a multi-tenet service, where computing and operating resources are shared across potentially millions of customers – making the scale and consistency extremely important to the viability of the Cloud business model. This paper will examine recent trends and well as areas of significance in a Cloud services agreement such as Defined Terms, Service Level Agreements, Data Privacy and Security, Regulatory Compliance as well as traditional agreement aspects such Audit Rights.

Author

Shahab Ahmed

Managing Counsel, Lead Privacy Counsel, Etihad Airways and Etihad Aviation Group, UAE

Shahab Ahmed is an American attorney with more than a decade of experience in compliance and privacy law on a global basis with focus on the EU law. Mr. Ahmed is the lead privacy counsel at Etihad Aviation Group, responsible for global privacy law across the world. He is also the Managing Counsel for the Etihad's Hala Division. Prior to Etihad, Mr. Ahmed was the Director of law at Microsoft Corporation, where he focused on global privacy law and regulatory compliance. Mr. Ahmed has a JD degree, a MBA and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has completed post graduate work at Harvard. He is a frequent author and speaker on privacy issues. All views presented in this paper are Mr. Ahmed’s personal views and is not meant to be legal advice.

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Cloud Computing: Contracting and Compliance Issues for In-House Counsel

Abstract

Author

Company

Etihad Airways and Etihad Aviation Group

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