What are some current trends that you think your fellow in-house lawyers should be mindful of?

The legal and business landscape has seen a substantial increase in regulations applying to tech platforms. This includes the EU’s Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act, AI Act, AVMS, the Data Act, NIS2 and DORA, among others. Some observations include:

Navigating regulatory overlap and scale: the sheer volume of new obligations is significant, and many regulations overlap in subject matter. Platforms are often regulated across these themes by different regulators.

Prioritising information flow and consistency: to manage this complexity, it’s crucial to ensure up-to-date internal information flows and effective cross-team communication. Establishing structures to adopt a consistent approach across various regulatory requirements is essential for complex service offerings.

Evolving skill sets for legal teams: this regulatory environment demands an additional skill set from traditional legal advisors. Governance, risk, control, audit, and programme management professionals – with deep regulatory understanding – are critical for designing and building compliance processes.

Learning across sectors: the EU Digital Services Act has been a central regulatory program for Google in Ireland. In establishing our independent DSA compliance team, we actively learned from compliance frameworks in other highly regulated sectors like financial services, privacy, and telecommunications. Regulators often learn from each other, so looking sideways to understand successful tools and approaches can inform compliance design, especially where other sectors are more mature in their regulatory thinking.

What is a personal passion of yours that is related to your work?

I am immensely proud of our work with local communities in Ireland. Our programs, delivered through local partners, offer digital support, career access assistance, and business start-up help. These initiatives empower participants to gain employment or access further education, reflecting a commitment to positive local impact. Recently we have opened The Factory in our Bolands Mill development which offers a versatile cultural space for local groups to book for classes, workshops, exhibitions, rehearsals, and more.