欧盟技术与法律：欧盟技术与法律：2024 年的法律趋势 | Legal Lunch Byte | 第 6 集

all right Kasia looks like we are live you are joining me from Poland it’s evening in Poland thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me um I I’ve really enjoyed restarting this this webinar series we we had about a 100 episodes uh of a webcast that we did during covid and we stopped for about a year and then we we decided we would try this format and it’s been it’s always fun for me to catch up with my friends around the world and hear what they’re doing and so I’m I’m so happy that you were able to clear some time your schedule to join me so please introduce yourself to the audience let us know what where you are what you’re doing and then we’ll dive into uh our topic on technology in EU thank you very much Jonathan and thank you for this invite it’s my pleasure to be here although as you said already 7 P.M in Warsaw Poland where I’m based um actually I’m a technology SL regulatory lawyer so I deal with everything in relation to TMT intellectual property regulation for the financial sector I try to combine those two types of law meaning civil law contracts law and then regulations and I have a lot of experience for advising my clients in blockchain sphere so this is my sweet spot so to say and I think that’s how we met was was around our our mutual uh level blockchain and and interest in in all things blockchain so and of course that has dovetailed into U as AI has has really eclipse blockchain in the last year I think and at least taken up a lot of the news print and then of course we have conversations with clients about integrating AI into blockchain so of course it’s not going away because if you can compound technology on top of technology and and create some synergies and uh you know we know our Tech clients are always going to do that as often as they can…yeah that’s correct so let’s dive in we’ve got 15 minutes or 13 minutes left let’s talk about some of the upcoming legislative changes in the EU what are you seeing I I know I mean we hear about uh certainly MAA in terms of the of the crypto markets uh you’ve mentioned Dora to me in the past and and the AI new AI act that I don’t know anything about so please give us an overview of of what you’re seeing and what’s what’s important right now in the EU yeah sure so actually those three acts that you mentioned are those that are on the table right now of course we have some other acts and some other legislative initiatives like Digital Services act for example but then I would like to focus on those that you mentioned because first I think there will be a lot around them uh in the coming years and then I think the relevance for us investor for us companies a huge uh when it comes those to those three um legislative proposal proposal are already enacted pieces of
law what do you want to start with yeah what’s which one of those is coming the soonest is MICA because it’s uh we’ve got just a few months until the first portion of MICA goes live in the EU yeah yeah actually it’s a very good idea maybe let’s start with with Mika then uh so MICA is a market in crypto assets act and it was enacted some time ago and we still have one year to um be obliged to be fully compliant with MICA then we have some additional grace period in MICA that is available for the member countries of the European Union so basically it means that um every single European country could decide on prolonging this uh deadline of the January 2025 um and there is possibility to prolong it for 18 months there some discussions in different European country countries how long it should be whether it should be like only prolongation for six um months or 12 months maybe so this is really a discussion and the differentiating point between different jurisdictions in Europe then what I observed recently is still a lot of Forum Shopping in terms of registration and getting so to say licenses in the European Union um for example in Poland we don’t have a proper legislation on crypto related stuff we only have a very simplified procedure for virtual asset service provider um license but it takes only like two weeks to get this and this is not a proper license um and because of this Simplicity of being registered to some extent in Poland I have a huge wave of clients from all over the world uh including from other European countries coming to to Poland and saying okay we want to be registered um in your jurisdiction so of course then they will have to comply with MAA but it will be on the later stage so that’s why they are deciding to do that um at least this my impression and I think that um again blockchain is somehow um getting Traction in Europe again and we do have more Trust in this technology because of course we had this crypto winter and we had those all you know profit saying okay this is the end of of blockchain this is not really the case and I see kind of maturity in the market and the clients that are coming to me now are better clients than those in the past meaning that they do have some kind of a real proposition value um and they want to make like a clean uh Trust worth business and not just to gain quick money so this is this is my take on MICA and blockchain right now yeah and there is so much value for blockchain projects to say that they have a a virtual asset service provider license even if it’s you know like you said even if it’s a a shortcut license right now like you might be able to get in Poland um or or any other uh offshore countries that that are offering some kind of Licensing I I know that my conversations with clients around this licensing issue that through the crypto winter through all you know FTX all the things that we saw in the news everyone got nervous all of a sudden and especially in the us where we don’t have a lot of regulatory Clarity we have a lot of companies that are looking offshore and if they can get a license anywhere in the world it looks better than having no license at all yeah yes indeed so let’s move on then you want to is AI or DORA which one of those do you want to tackle next maybe AI Act uh because we had some news recently um actually um a new version the last version probably of AI Act was released or leaked um to the general public um last week I guess and uh I think there’s a lot of still uncertainty around a act and my main take and my main opinion about a Act is that it really so to say risks um our competitiveness um against us companies um of course AI act will have extra territorial application but then U we already seen this kind of situation when some AI related us companies decided not to enter European Market at all um in order to not to be under regulations that we will have shortly in here so the the question is that uh do we really want to put so much pressure and so much importance on um protection um on regulation and on making sure that everything is very much in line with our idea of what is right and then on the other hand not having all this Innovative great projects in the European Union and I really don’t have a clear answer to that I’m not I’m not sure whether we should go in that direction though and of course as I mentioned if we will have this AI act in this form in force AI companies entering in European market will have to comply so we will have some kind of um different types of AI systems we did had … we did have a lot of conversation around definitions um generative AI prohibited AI system etc etc and of course we will have some exceptions to application of AI act but then uh in the end from my perspective it will be pretty B some and um if we have this uh very broad application of an act and we will have many actors to be in the in the scope of application of this act we will see um again a lot of work for lawyers but then um very often what I what I observe um clients are trying somehow to circumvent um this kind of obligation so maybe again they will decide to go somewhere else then to Europe in order not to be under those regulations I think I always appreciate and and I don’t think I appreciated it early in my career when I wasn’t working with a lot of European lawyers but now that um I’ve joined aija like you and we I have the opportunity to travel to Europe and and certainly interface with with a lot of my counterparts in in Europe I really appreciate that the EU tends to jump into the regulation I’d say much more quickly than in the US US US Government sits back and says well let let’s see what happens uh you know Regulators you the SEC FTC might uh might take make some examples out of some companies that that would be behaving badly for instance they’re very focused on fraud but I they kind of let the technology run and run and run and uh and I like that I can I can look over to the EU and see what’s going on there in terms of the of the drafting perspective drafting like you said dealing with definitions and and and really as lawyers that’s that’s what we need right we need definitions to figure out um what we’re talking about even with when we’re talking about new technologies so I really appreciate that it’s a good it’s a good shortcut for me to be able to jump across the ocean and and hear what everyone’s talking about and then come back to the US makes me look like a little bit of a profit because I can I can benefit from all the all the extra work that that you’re doing over there so what about um so what about Dora then then we we’ve talked a little bit about MICA and AI what’s going on with Dora yeah Dora is maybe less known for you guys from the US but I had to look it up yes I had to look it up to see what dora stood for digital operational resilience act okay tell us about that yeah yeah it’s a little little bit more niche it is a act that will be aimed for the financial sector mostly H so then every financial institution would will have to comply with the regulations with the requirements from Dora but then indirectly also ICT service providers will have to comply because the Dora is about to some extent about Contracting between financial institutions and then providers of computer telecommunication related um services so every time for example when a um polish or German financial institution will contract with for example Amazon or Microsoft the requirements from Dora will have to be taken into account H it means that um our regulator is expecting from the ICT service providers also from us to modify adjust contracts with financial institutions in the European Union in order to uh have this digital operational resilience H in the whole sector as such of course Dora is not only about Contracting it’s also about other things um meaning that um some um ICT service providers will be under the supervision of the local authorities so um some ICT service providers will get a decision administrative decision uh telling them okay guys now you are under our supervision and we will check whether you comply with some um requirements from Dora meaning for example in relation to incident reporting in relation to um preparation of procedures uh exit plans business continuity plans um documents around risk assessment so all this additional documentation will have to be prepared um both by and for first and foremost by the financial institutions but then also to a certain extent um ICT service providers will have to cooperate also on for example trainings so if we have a financial institution based in Germany and they use Cloud Computing Services provided by a us company sometimes this Polish or German company will ask the provider okay guys we need to have your cooperation because we need to prepare a prepare a plan for our trainings for our employees so I think that the you know underestimated relevance and importance for the both financial sector and also for the ICT sector um this will be very relevant and we will see that in a very short period of time because DORA will be in place in one year that’s great so we’re almost at time it goes very quick but I’m I’m so glad that we had a chance to to check in and uh certainly I will be keeping an eye on on these a as they’re rolling out and sometime maybe I’ll have you back and you can explain the whole European Union legislative process to me because so many layers I’m sure it feels that way for people outside the United States as well about how laws actually get passed and and enforced in the US so uh one last thing uh for anyone who’s watching if you’re interested next week we’ll have Dan Harris on here he’s one of our firms founding Partners we’ll be talking about big things happening in China and next week we’re also doing an hour long free webinar uh with me Dan Harris and Fred Rocafort for talking about kind of a China Business Market Update and what we’re seeing on the legal side so if you’re interested uh check us out on LinkedIn and you can you can tune in for that hour long free webinar as well Kasia thank you again I’m looking forward to catching up with you probably in in Mexico City I think in uh in a few months so really appreciate it always good to see you thanks thank you very much it was my pleasure thanks bye