We may be going out on a limb, but these are our predictions for 2009:

• We expect both parties on large scale projects to start examining the fine print of their contracts. Suppliers may be looking for relief events, customers for the means to reduce costs. Renegotiation will be the order of the day, but we also expect litigation to increase.
• With cost being important, we expect offshore service providers, open source and those who provide software as a service to make ground, while traditional IT suppliers look at a shortage of new deals. Where new deals are struck, we expect a reduction in on-going cost (backed up by contractual mechanisms such as benchmarking, gain-sharing and ‘value for money’ provisions) to be a key feature of new contracts.
• The last two years have seen a huge increase in the importance of data security. We expect the trend in enforcement activity to continue, but also for high profile failures in security not to cease overnight. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 has provided a means for the ICO to fine for historic breaches of security in a manner similar to the ability of the FSA to do so, as well as custodial sentences for those who unlawfully obtain personal data. We expect regulation enacting this power to appear sooner rather than later. Counterbalancing our view on off-shoring (above) we expect customers to be more concerned about transfers of data outside the EEA.
• We all await the outcome of the British Sky Broadcasting v EDS litigation which took up nearly a whole year of court time in 2007/8. The expectation is that this will have a major impact on the scope of representations made by sales staff, who may thereby render their employer liable for fraudulent misrepresentation.
• We think the exemptions from liability in the eCommerce Directive will be subject to re-examination in light of P2P distribution, the availability of harmful content and perceived need to protect children. There will continue to be pressure put on network service providers to attempt to monitor content passing through their systems.

Please click on this link to view the profiles of Morgan Cole's IT law group.