Article 29 Working Party Adopts Cooperation Procedure For Approval Of Contractual Clauses

On 26 November 2014, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (the "Working Party"), an independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy comprised of representatives from the national data protection authorities of the EU Member States ("DPA"), the European Data Protection Supervisor and the European Commission, adopted a working document that establishes a co-operation procedure for issuing common opinions on contractual clauses considered to be compliant with the European Commission's Model Clauses (the "Working Document").

In the framework of Article 26.2 of Directive 95/46/EC of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (the "Data Protection Directive"), companies may make use of contractual clauses to adduce sufficient safeguards to effect international transfers of personal data from the European Economic Area (the "EEA") to third countries. To