Extract from Dechert LLP’s article “The Long Arm of the Law Gets Longer – UK Introduces Overseas Production Orders” written by Matthew Banham, Ben Barnett, Caroline Black, Jeffrey Brown, Laura Manson, and Matthew Mazur
On February 12 2019 the Crime (Overseas Production Orders) Act 2019 (the “COPO Act”) came into force in the UK. This new law gives UK authorities (including the Serious Fraud Office (“SFO”) and the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”)) the power to apply to a UK court to compel a company or individual operating or based outside the UK to provide electronic data stored outside the UK.
The COPO Act brings the UK into alignment with the regime in the United States. In 2018, the U.S. Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (“CLOUD”) Act came into force1. The CLOUD Act increased the scope of U.S. companies’ obligations to disclose electronic data stored outside the United States. The CLOUD Act also created a framework by which foreign countries (such as the UK) could seek disclosure of data held by U.S. cloud service providers (“CSPs”), without U.S. co-operation or oversight.
