Department: Special Projects Our position in the market has enabled us to obtain experience over a wide-ranging number of TMT matters in various industries and over time. The following are examples of areas we have worked on or continue to work on:
- Regulatory review and assessment. We help clients review products and services to help them identify possible legal issues or hurdles. We then help provide solutions and risk evaluation. In this regard, we have experience and expertise in services such as:
- VAS, VoIP, cloud services
- IoT; telematics
- Telematics
- Streaming services and OTT
- E-commerce platforms
- Gaming
- Data centers
- Telecoms towers
- In the area of fintech, we advise clients with local laws on money remittance, e-money, online financial transactions, payment services, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Our work here covers regulatory advice, licensing and reporting, compliance, M&A and investments, and contract review. We provide assistance on questions that range from anti-money laundering issues to data privacy, from tax issues to white labelling. We have advised the investors in the two biggest fintech M&A projects in the Philippines – the investment of Ant Financial in Globe Telecom’s Mynt, and KKR and Tencent in PLDT/Smart’s Paymaya business. We continue to work with investors in the cryptocurrency area including NFTs.
- We have deep experience in telecoms M&A and related issues, including nationality issues, having worked on the largest Philippine telecoms deals including the sale by San Miguel Corporation of its telco assets to PLDT and Globe. We also have M&A experience in the country’s burgeoning data center and tower industries.
- We provide advice on satellite services, frequency use, and submarine cable networks. As examples of the kind of work we do in this area: we provided advice on the first security lien created on a space satellite under local law; we assisted a leading US-based tech company in exploring frequency use for the deployment of drones as an alternative platform for Internet services; we conducted due diligence on a submarine cable consortium and have assisted a client in negotiating the purchase of an interest in the consortium.
- All matters relating to data privacy and cybersecurity, including compliance, audit, privacy documents review, data breach notification and issues.
- Focus on data – from a licensing and IP perspective, as well as questions on data localization and sovereignty.
- Our media and advertising work covers questions on doing business, entry restrictions, content regulation, non-traditional media issues. In this field, we have reviewed media-related services, licensing issues, checked programming for libel and restricted content, checked advertisements for compliance with FDA regulations, and assisted media companies in commercial transactions in the Philippines.
- Expertise (regulatory and general commercial practice) in industries that have TMT /IT aspects such as online retail, logistics, IT services, pharma, life sciences, BPOs, and aviation.
- IP law, licensing and technology transfer
- Distribution agreements and related questions (e.g., competition law issues, tax)
- Dispute resolution experience in TMT industries
