Edward Machin

Counselling and Compliance

• Providing day-to-day counsel to high-profile clients in the food and beverage, financial services, life sciences, lead generation and data analytics sectors on a wide range of complex data protection, security and information law issues.
• Helping organisations prepare for new and upcoming laws in the EU and UK, including the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, the NIS2 Directive, the Digital Services Act, the Data Governance Act and the Online Safety Bill.
• Advising clients on the myriad of legal, regulatory and policy issues surrounding their investment in and development, supply and use of AI and machine learning systems and tools – from algorithmic bias and data acquisition risks, to the protection of sensitive data and implementation of organisational governance strategies. 
• Counselling medical centres, universities and life sciences companies on the application of the GDPR and UK GDPR to their research and health care operations, including on the design of their consent forms and associated data protection disclosures.
• Advising businesses on legal and regulatory compliance issues in connection with their online behavioural advertising and direct marketing activities.
• Assisting clients create and operationalise global compliance programmes to address the requirements of national and extra-territorial data protection laws.
• Advising on complex international data transfer questions, including to address Schrems II and national localisation and notification requirements.
• Counselling on a wide range of discrete data protection issues, such as automated decision-making, communications and device monitoring, high-risk processing, the use of cookies and tracking technologies, and data scraping.
• Providing training to clients’ legal and compliance, HR, marketing and product design teams on the GDPR, UK GDPR, ePrivacy Directive and PECR, Brexit and related issues.

Crisis Management and Incident Response

• Counselling multinational technology companies in their responses to personal data breaches and cybersecurity incidents, including making notifications to regulators and affected individuals across the EU and UK.
• Advising multiple financial institutions and private capital providers on responding to U.S. and UK law enforcement requests for information, including under the Investigatory Powers Act, the Data Protection Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s books and records rule.
• Representing ultra-high-net-worth individuals in challenging their World-Check designations as politically exposed persons.
• Providing privacy and data protection advice to the FCPA Independent Compliance Monitor for Glencore, a multinational commodity trading and mining company.
• Counselling clients in the UK and EU on dozens of contentious data subject rights requests, including before supervisory authorities and in pre-litigation correspondence.
• Representing a former senior executive at a global energy provider in an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, with a focus on the naming of the client in public court proceedings.
• Regularly advising on the data protection aspects of internal and external investigations, including on issues relating to whistleblowing, device collection and review, U.S. disclosure requirements and international data transfers.

Transactions and Fund Management

• Advising private equity companies in Europe, the U.S. and Asia on the data, privacy and cybersecurity issues arising in pre-acquisition diligence and post-acquisition remediation.
• Drafting and negotiating the data protection aspects of asset management and fund formation documentation (including PPMs, subscription documents, administration agreements and related contracting advice).