Brexit: Impacts for IP, Trade and Commercialisation Agreements

Joint Meeting between LES Britain and Ireland, LES Benelux and LES France

  • Online Zoom Video Conference: 18th February 2021
  • Start: 4:30 – 6.20 p.m. (European time)
  • Registration: click here
Program

16:30 Welcoming note by the LES Society presidents

16.35 Chair’s Introduction, Laura MacDonald, LES Benelux

16:40 Brexit: The story so far, Interpretation, Copyright and Database Rights, Dai Davis, Partner, Percy Crow Davis & Co

What we know already about divergences in law and their potential impact on business: Enforcement of IP rights; parallel trade and exhaustion of IP rights; impacts on other intellectual property rights.

This session will include:

  • Some comments on what the Withdrawal Treaty says about Copyright
  • Known divergences between European and UK Law
  • Exhaustion of Rights and Parallel Imports
  • Effect on GDPR
  • Effect on Data Base Rights and on those qualifying for those rights

17:15 Brexit:  Commercial Contract Issues, Gideon Shirazi, Barrister, 4 Pump Court

Intellectual Property issues in commercial contracts – drafting for and impacts of Brexit:  force majeure, material adverse impact and frustration; choice of law and jurisdiction; where contract disputes may arise.

This session will include:

  • What Brexit means for exclusion/limitation clauses
  • What Brexit means for frustration and force majeure clauses
  • Arbitration and jurisdiction issues, post Brexit
  • Post Brexit enforcement of rights
  • Drafting comments

17:45 Panel Session: Questions and Answers

18:15  Chairs’ closing remarks

18:20 Session closes

Our speakers

Dai Davis

Dai Davis is a technology lawyer.  He holds Masters degrees in both Physics and Computer Science.  He is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.  Dai has consistently been recommended in the Legal 500 and Chambers Guides to the Legal Profession for over 25 years.  Having been national head of Intellectual Property Law and later national head of Information Technology law at Eversheds, Dai is now a partner in his own solicitor’s practice, Percy Crow Davis & Co.

Dai advises clients on non-contentious Intellectual Property and Information Technology matters.  Dai is a non-executive director of FAST (Federation Against Software Theft) and a Liveryman of the City of London through WCIT (Worshipful Company of Information Technologists).

Gideon Shirazi

Gideon is a barrister at 4 Pump Court specialising in high-value, complex commercial litigation and international arbitration, with a particular focus on technology, data and IP licensing disputes. He was featured in the 2018 Global Data Review’s “40 Under 40”: a list of the top 40 data lawyers worldwide aged under 40, and is ranked in Chambers & Partners and Legal 500 for IT which notes “He really knows his stuff, is very knowledgeable and very commercial where it counts”. He often acts as sole counsel against senior juniors, QCs and eminent arbitration practitioners.

Laura MacDonald

Since 2016, Laura has headed the HQ of ASTP (the largest trans-European members association for knowledge transfer professionals) running training events and conferences for those working at the academic/industrial interface. Laura originally qualified as a Scots lawyer, specialising in EU and IP law. Her transition to the world of academic/industrial collaborations started in 1992 in Dundee when she established the first in-house legal function in a UK university to support such collaborations. Then followed a career in Edinburgh University and latterly Leiden, The Netherlands with responsibility for establishing collaborations, research consortia, managing IP portfolios, setting up spin-outs and training colleagues.