The Impact On U.S. Discovery Of EU Data Protection And Discovery Blocking Statutes

INTRODUCTION

As we publish this January 2013 edition of our paper, nations throughout the world are grappling with the challenges of protecting personal information in today's fast-moving, global economy. Countries from Argentina to Vietnam have enacted data privacy laws, and many are seeking to strengthen the protections that are already in place. In the past 12 months, the European Commission (the "Commission") proposed sweeping changes to Europe's approach to data protection¹ and France's data protection agency, the CNIL,² declared that it was "ready for combat" to protect French information in an increasingly digital world.³ We expect significant data protection developments in 2013.