Finally, after going quiet for several months, the US Gov & Microsoft is set to return to court. The US government had obtained a court ruling under the US Stored Communications Act to allow it to gain access to data held in Microsoft’s Dublin datacentre. Microsoft had resisted on the basis that Irish law should apply to data held in Ireland and that the US government should apply under the appropriate treaty to get access. The Irish government has apparently said it would consider such a request “expeditiously”.
I’m not one to be dramatic, but this ruling could affect the whole of US cloud business in the EU. If the US government can get access to data simply because there is a US provider in the supply chain, that is likely to result in customers favouring non-US supply chains.
The Cloud Lawyer 
[…] renegotiations first. It should also ensure it provides comfort over the ability of US law to grant access to data held by US owned providers in Dublin and elsewhere in the EU such as in the current case against […]
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[…] Just me being alarmist? Hardly. Last month Frank Jennings of law firm Wallace LLP, recognised as one of the most informed cloud legal experts, warned on his blog: […]
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[…] been a big development in the DoJ v Microsoft case which we’ve covered before. This is the case where the DoJ had been seeking to rely upon a broad interpretation of legislation […]
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